Grec antique mycénien Or Quatre embouchures en or - VIIIe-Ve siècle av. - 8 cm

Mouthpieces of flattened elliptical and oval form with dotted decoration for three of them, one or two attachment holes at the each end
8 cm long max., 6.8 cm long min., 3.5 cm high max, 2.7 cm high min.

Ancient gold funerary mouthpieces
The oval ornaments of thin sheet gold of the type illustrated here have given rise to a number of theories as to their use. Talking about a Greek grave discovered in Olbia in 1891, E. H. Minns (in "Scythians and Greeks") describes a chamber lined with stone in which lay two skeletons, a man and a woman, with gold leaves upon eyes, mouth and ears. He goes on to suggest that, like funeral masks, they served to make it less painful to look upon the face of the dead at the time of the funeral ceremony and at the same time prevented the entrance of demons into the body through these openings. A number of mouthpieces have been found in place during excavations, and Maxwell-Hyslop ("Western Asiatic Jewellery, 3000-612 B.C.") recalls an example from Beth Shan (Syria) which was found inside an Iron Age anthropoid sarcophagus, 1200-1000 B.C. There use is equally attested in many cases by the embossed representations of lips which can be seen on some early specimens.

Provenance
Coins&Antiquities, London, 1st half of 1970s (with old inventory numbers at the back)
Private collection, Switzerland from the above

Condition
The concentric circles embossed into the gold plaques over the eyes indicate that the warrior's eyes would forever gaze into the beyond.
burials complete with gold funeral wreaths and face-coverings (eye- and mouth-covers)

Shipping terms
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