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The death masks of Mycenae are a series of golden funerary masks found on buried bodies within a burial site titled Grave Circle A, located within the ancient Greek city of Mycenae. There are seven discovered masks in total, found with the burials of six adult males and one male child.
The most detailed and stylistically distinct mask came to be known as the Mask of Agamemnon, named after the famous king of ancient Mycenae whose triumphs and tribulations are celebrated in Homer’s epic poems and in the tragic plays of Euripides.
The mask was a death mask, and made of a thick sheet of gold hammered against a wooden background. A sharp tool was used later to chisel the finer details. The mask is said to depict the face of a man with “an oblong face, wide forehead, long fine nose and tightly closed thin lips.”
This gold death mask was found by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 during excavations of a Bronze Age tomb at the Mycenae archaeological site in southern Greece.
The Mask of Agamemnon is a gold funerary mask discovered at the Bronze Age site of Mycenae in southern Greece. The mask, displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, has been described by the historian Cathy Gere as the "Mona Lisa of prehistory". [1]
Gold death-mask, known as the ‘mask of Agamemnon’. "I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon," archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann exclaimed after discovering a gold leaf mask at the citadel of Mycenae.
In the ancient city of Mycenae, a series of golden funerary masks was discovered, offering a unique window into the burial customs of the elite. These masks, unearthed within Grave Circle A, date back to the late Bronze Age and have intrigued historians for over a century.
When German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered a gold funerary mask in a shaft grave on the edges of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae in 1876, he reportedly declared that he had gazed upon the face of the mythical Mycenaean king Agamemnon.
Agamemnon Mask. Gold death mask (known as Agamemnon’s Mask). 1550 – 1500 BCE. Found in Mycenae, Grave V, Grave Circle A. 16th c. BCE. The mask was made in gold sheet with repoussé details. The two holes near the ears are indication that it was secured over the deceased’s face with twine.
This so-called mask of Agamemnon is the best known of Schliemann's finds from the royal tombs at Mycenae. A death-mask, it was made from a thick sheet of metal hammered against a wooden background, with the details chased on later with a sharp tool.