Gold Cup with Bulls


 

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Death Mask of Agamemnon

"Among the most spectacular of Schliemann's finds is the beaten gold mask illustrated here, one of several from the royal burial complex.  It has often been compared to the famous gold mummy mask of Tutankhamen.  The treatment of the human face is, of course, more primitive in the Mycenaean mask.  But this was one of the first known attempts in Greece to render the human face at life-size, whereas Tutankhamen's mask stands in a venerable line of monumental Egyptian sculptures going back more than a millennium.  It is now known whether the Mycenaean masks were intended as portraits, but different physical types were recorded with care.  Our example, with its full beard, must portray a mature man, perhaps a king - although not Agamemnon, as Schliemann wished.  If Agamemnon was a real king, he lived some three hundred years after this mask was fashioned.  Clearly the Mycenaeans were 'rich in gold' long before Homer's heroes fought at Troy."

- Gardner's Art Through The Ages, 11th edition, Vol. I, p. 92 - 95