DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7476#0024
8
GOLD MASK FROM BOEOTIA
border with similar nail-holes is also visible on the upper margin of the
breastplate from Grave V.1 The lion mask was fixed in the same way on
a flat surface.
Good illustrations of these features are supplied by the two masks here
reproduced to half-scale in Figs. 2 and 3 from Schliemann's original photo-
graphs. The first example (Fig. 2)—the finest of all—from Grave V 2
shows a bearded and mustachio'd face that has the best claim to be based
on a real likeness of the deceased. Here the perforations for attachment
are clearly visible beneath the ears, with the heads of the modern tacks—
with which ihey were fixed to the background for photographic purposes—
protruding through them. The flattening of the plate above the forehead
is also clearly marked, showing a ridge, as if some band had been super-
posed. The other mask (Fig. 3), from Grave IV,3 presents traces of this
flattening out round its whole margin, the two sections of this flat border
behind the ears showing a double perforation. Though the attempt at
portraiture is here very inferior to the other, the lashes of the closed eyes,
absent in Fig. 2, are here engraved.
The Gold Masks—a New Example.
To the masks bearing these marks of attachment to a wooden surface
I am now able to add the further example, made of thin gold plate, repro-
duced in Fig. 4, a, b. It was originally in the collection of Dr. Julius Naue,
the eminent prehistoric authority of Munich, whence it passed into a Dutch
Collection 4 and later formed an item in a miscellaneous sale of Sotheby's 5 in
1927, where I was able to acquire it. According to Dr. Naue's information,
which there is no reason to doubt, the gold mask was found in a Boeotian
tomb. It is not necessary to suppose that the coffin, to which it, cx hypothesi,
belonged, was placed on the floor of a tomb of the ' bee-hive ' type. From its
smaller dimensions it may well have stood within one of the rock-cut
1 Schliemann, p. 3or, Fig. 458 : better
shown by Stais {pp. cit., p. 54, Fig. 9), but
there upside down.
! Schliemann, Mycenae, pp. 311, 312, and
Fig. 474 (p. 389); Schuchhardt, p. 253, Fig.
254. The perforations below the ears are not
shown in these cuts.
3 Schliemann, Alycenae, p. 220, Fig. 331 ;
Schuchhardt, p. 223, Fig. 223. The perfora-
tions are again not visible in these cuts.
1 It was for some time in the Museum of
Dr. C. W. Lunsingh Scheurleer at the Hague.
(See his Catalogus eener Verzamelingvan Egyp-
tische, Grieksche, Komeinsche en andere Ot/d-
heden, 1909, No. 574 and PI. LIV.) It was
afterwards sold, owing to quite unjustifiable
doubts having been expressed as to its
genuineness. It is now in the Ashmolean
Museum.
0 Sale of Monday, December 19, Catalogue
no. 168, and PI. III. Dr. Naue died in
1907.
GOLD MASK FROM BOEOTIA
border with similar nail-holes is also visible on the upper margin of the
breastplate from Grave V.1 The lion mask was fixed in the same way on
a flat surface.
Good illustrations of these features are supplied by the two masks here
reproduced to half-scale in Figs. 2 and 3 from Schliemann's original photo-
graphs. The first example (Fig. 2)—the finest of all—from Grave V 2
shows a bearded and mustachio'd face that has the best claim to be based
on a real likeness of the deceased. Here the perforations for attachment
are clearly visible beneath the ears, with the heads of the modern tacks—
with which ihey were fixed to the background for photographic purposes—
protruding through them. The flattening of the plate above the forehead
is also clearly marked, showing a ridge, as if some band had been super-
posed. The other mask (Fig. 3), from Grave IV,3 presents traces of this
flattening out round its whole margin, the two sections of this flat border
behind the ears showing a double perforation. Though the attempt at
portraiture is here very inferior to the other, the lashes of the closed eyes,
absent in Fig. 2, are here engraved.
The Gold Masks—a New Example.
To the masks bearing these marks of attachment to a wooden surface
I am now able to add the further example, made of thin gold plate, repro-
duced in Fig. 4, a, b. It was originally in the collection of Dr. Julius Naue,
the eminent prehistoric authority of Munich, whence it passed into a Dutch
Collection 4 and later formed an item in a miscellaneous sale of Sotheby's 5 in
1927, where I was able to acquire it. According to Dr. Naue's information,
which there is no reason to doubt, the gold mask was found in a Boeotian
tomb. It is not necessary to suppose that the coffin, to which it, cx hypothesi,
belonged, was placed on the floor of a tomb of the ' bee-hive ' type. From its
smaller dimensions it may well have stood within one of the rock-cut
1 Schliemann, p. 3or, Fig. 458 : better
shown by Stais {pp. cit., p. 54, Fig. 9), but
there upside down.
! Schliemann, Mycenae, pp. 311, 312, and
Fig. 474 (p. 389); Schuchhardt, p. 253, Fig.
254. The perforations below the ears are not
shown in these cuts.
3 Schliemann, Alycenae, p. 220, Fig. 331 ;
Schuchhardt, p. 223, Fig. 223. The perfora-
tions are again not visible in these cuts.
1 It was for some time in the Museum of
Dr. C. W. Lunsingh Scheurleer at the Hague.
(See his Catalogus eener Verzamelingvan Egyp-
tische, Grieksche, Komeinsche en andere Ot/d-
heden, 1909, No. 574 and PI. LIV.) It was
afterwards sold, owing to quite unjustifiable
doubts having been expressed as to its
genuineness. It is now in the Ashmolean
Museum.
0 Sale of Monday, December 19, Catalogue
no. 168, and PI. III. Dr. Naue died in
1907.