Ancient Artefact of the Day: Today's piece has been chosen to fit with #MuseumsUnlocked and the focus on bone, horn, and teeth.

The Boar's Tusk Helmet from Mycenae, Chamber Tomb 518, Late Helladic II-IIIA.

#AAOTD

Image: National Archaeological Museum, Athens (Inv. No. 6568)

This striking reconstruction of a Bronze Age helmet, with the boar's tusks attached to a modern conical leather cap, is one of several examples of such pieces from the Greek Mainland in the 15th-14th centuries BC.

Such helmets are also seen in artistic depictions, such as this detail from the wall-paintings of Xeste 4, at Akrotiri on Thera. Visible in the depiction are the holes in the tusk plates to connect it to the fabric beneath.

Image: Archaeological Museum of Thera, (Inv. No. 11548)

A similar helmet may also be seen on this fragment of an incised bowl from Bogazköy, dating to the Hittite Middle Kingdom, ca. Late 15th Century BC

Image: Çorum Museum, Turkey (1-329-75)

These images indicate the spread of Myceneaen artefacts and influences across the Aegean and the Near East, if not the Mycenaeans themselves.

Necessarily such images also call to mind the mentions of Boar's Tusk helmets in the Homeric texts, such as that given to Odysseus by Meriones:

"ἀμφὶ δέ οἱ κυνέην κεφαλῆφιν ἔθηκε
ῥινοῦ ποιητήν· πολέσιν δ᾿ ἔντοσθεν ἱμᾶσιν
ἐντέτατο στερεῶς· ἔκτοσθε δὲ λευκοὶ ὀδόντες
ἀργιόδοντος ὑὸς θαμέες ἔχον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα
εὖ καὶ ἐπισταμένως· μέσσῃ δ᾿ ἐνὶ πῖλος ἀρήρει" (Iliad 10.261-265).

'Around his head he placed a helmet of hide, the tight-stretched thongs stiffening it inside; the outside gleamed with white boar's teeth, the tusks set this way and that, fixed well and skilfully; a lining of felt was fixed on the inside.'

The construction of one helmet would require the tusks of 33 boars, leading to the belief that these were high-status prestige items. Homer too seems to indicate this as the helmet above was "stolen out of Eleon by Autolycus after he broke into the well-built house of Amyntor".

So that was today's #AAOTD thread for #MuseumsUnlocked - hope you enjoyed it!