A highly tinned 'silvered' helmet of Chalcidian type, the bowl forged in one piece with strong ridge and horizontal neck protection, cut-outs for ears with flared edges, later nose guard flanked by raised thick eyebrows; articulated cheekpieces with six-part hinges and contoured edges, hole for the attachment of a chin-strap; mounted on a custom-made stand.

PROVENANCE:
Property of a London businessman; formerly with Piasa Auctions, Paris, France, 13 April 2005, lot 495; previously in a UK private collection, accompanied by a copy of the Piasa invoice and an archaeological report by military specialist Dr Raffaele D'Amato; this lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by AIAD certificate number no.10294-168754.

LITERATURE:
See Ohly, D., Die Ägineten, Die Ostgiebelgruppe, Munich, 1976; Pflug, H., 'Chalkidische Helme' in Antike Helme, RGZM Monographien 14, Mainz, 1988, pp.137-150; Chernenko, E.V., The Scythians 700-300 BC, Hong Kong, 1998; Jonovski, Trakits (The Thracians), 7th century BC-1st century AD, Sofia, 2010 (in Bulgarian).

FOOTNOTES:
Only aristocratic Thracian cavalrymen wore helmets. Helmets from northern and southern Thrace contrasted distinctively in style, with the northern helmets showing Scythian influence, while the southern helmets were mainly of Greek or Thracian style. Such helmets, when used in Greece and Macedonia, were often crested and sometimes had extra crests or feathers as side-ornaments. There are very few records of finds of Thracian helmets with traces of crest fittings.