Details

LOT 0907

Greek Bronze Illyrian Helmet

6TH CENTURY BC

10 1/4" (850 grams, 26cm).

A sheet-bronze Illyrian-style helmet with two parallel ribs to the bowl, rectangular facial aperture, narrow flange to the rear; punched annulets to the border of the aperture and cheek-plates; small holes to the brow and ends of the cheek-plates.

Provenance

Property of a Welsh collector; acquired early 2000 from John Moore Antiques, Bedfordshire, UK.

Footnotes

The term 'Illyrian' describes a style of bronze helmet, which in its later variations covered the entire head and neck, and was open-faced in all of its subsequent forms. Its earliest styles were first developed in ancient Greece, specifically in the Peloponnese, during the 8th and 7th centuries BC (700–640 BC). Accurate representations on Corinthian vases are sufficient to indicate that the "Illyrian" type helmet was developed before 600 BC. The helmet was misleadingly named as an "Illyrian" type due to a large number of early finds coming from Illyria.

CONDITION