Collection particulière, Suisse, 1992

Christie's, Londres, 14 avril 2011: n°331 (ill.)

Collection Christian Levett, Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins (MACM), Mougins, France, juin 2011-août 2023 (Inv. n° MMoCA725)

Christie's, Antiquities, sale 6060, Londres,14 avril 2011, lot 331

Minerva : the International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology, juillet/août 2011, vol. 22, no. 4, n°23

N. Nussbaum « À Mougins, les casques gréco-romains racontent les guerres antiques » in Nice Matin, 24 mai 2015, p.35

The Kingdom of Urartu, established on the Armenian high plateau, is distinguished by its masterful production of bronze objects. These helmets have been discovered both in cultic deposits and in the armories of palatial complexes.

The conical shape, characteristic of the Urartian style, symbolizes power and the divine. The iconographic program unfolds like a stela, in superimposed registers. At the center, a frieze framed by two groups of four leonine-headed serpents depicts a winged deity—most likely Teisheba, the storm god within the Urartian triad. He is flanked by devotees bearing offerings, and his posture is inspired by the god Ashur, the tutelary deity of rival Assyria. This treatment reveals the exchanges between two powers that, between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, both confronted and influenced one another.

This permeability is strikingly evident in the lower register of the helmet. A lion hunt scene, a quintessential royal privilege, is rendered in the style of Assyrian bas-reliefs. Both an aristocratic and sacrificial practice, the lion hunt echoes the military success celebrated on the upper band, which presents a procession of armed warriors.

More than simple votive objects, these helmets were worn by the Urartian elite. Their cosmological representations bestowed divine protection upon the wearer, counterbalanced by the military friezes that assert the power of the kingdom.

This helmet has been the subject of a more in-depth analysis by Gayane Poghosyan in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology.

(POGHOSYAN, G., “Ritual Scenes in the Artistic Decoration of the Urartian Bronze Helmets” in Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology, No. 11–3/2024).