- Museum number
- 1823,0610.1
- Description
-
Bronze Etruscan helmet of the Negau type with an inscribed text in the Syracusan Greek alphabet; domed body made of hammered sheet bronze, lower part concave, with a small lip around the bottom edge; the inscription translates 'Hieron, son of Deinomenes, and the Syracusans, [dedicated] to Zeus Etruscan [spoils] from Cumae': the object is believed to have been captured at the battle of Cumae in 474 BC and deposited in the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia as a dedication to the god.
- Production date
- 474BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 19.80 centimetres
-
Weight: 744 grammes
-
Width: 21.70 centimetres
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Depth: 24 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See S. Haynes, Etruscan civilization. A cultural history (London: British Museum Press, 2000), pp. 261-262.
- Location
- On display (G73/dc54)
- Exhibition history
-
1980, 5 Jun- 26 Oct, London, BM, The Ancient Olympic Games
2008, 1 May-12 Jul, Shanghai, The Ancient Olympic Games
2008, 2 Aug-31 Sep, Hong Kong, The Ancient Olympic Games
2012-2013, Sep- Jan, Sicily, Museo Archeologica Regionale "Paolo Orsi" di Siracusa.
2013, 3 Apr-19 Aug, Los Angeles, Getty Villa at the J Paul Getty Museum "Sicily: Between Greece and Rome"
2013-2014, Sept-Jan, Cleveland Art Museum, 'Sicily: Between Greece and Rome'
2016, 28 Apr-14 Aug, London, British Museum, Sicily: Culture and Conquest
2017, 11 Apr-27 Nov, Scavi di Pompei, Pompei e i Greci
- Acquisition date
- 1823
- Acquisition notes
- The Donation Letter is bound in the volume D. Bronsted, Sopra un'Iscrizione Greca scolpita in un antico elmo di bronze rinvenuto nelle ruine di Olimpia del Peloponneso (Naples, 1820), in the Library of the Department of Greece and Rome. It reads "The accompanying helmet is most respectfully offered for His Majesty's gracious acceptance by Major General Sir Patirck Ross, late Resident in the Island of Zante. This valuable antique was found amidst the Ruins of Olympia in the year 1817, and belonged, as its inscription derides, to a monument dedicated in the 5th century before Christ, to Jupiter by Hiero the 1st of Syracuse in commemoration of his victory at the Olympic Games. The monument is described in the 3rd volume of Pausanis. (address) August 1821."
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1823,0610.1