Mask of Agamemnon, Unknown artist, Ancient Greece
Unknown artist, Ancient Greece·Mask of Agamemnon·c. 1550–1500 BCE·Hammered gold sheet·National Archaeological Museum, Athens↓

Unknown artist, Ancient Greece

Mask of Agamemnon, c. 1550–1500 BCE

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A funeral mask hammered from a single sheet of gold, with a handlebar moustache and pointed beard. Heinrich Schliemann found it in 1876 in Shaft Grave V at Mycenae and believed he had gazed on the face of Homer's Agamemnon. It in fact dates to the 16th century BCE, centuries before any Trojan War, and a few scholars have questioned whether it is genuine.

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The ears are cut out rather than engraved, and no other Mycenaean face has this beard and moustache: the very details at the heart of the authenticity debate.

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