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A gold diadem from Aegina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Reynold Higgins
Affiliation:
Hillside Cottage, Dunsfold, nr. Godalming, Surrey GU8 4PB

Extract

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.

In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1987

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References

1 AAA xiv (1981) 182Google Scholar. Jahrbuch der Universität Salzburg (1981–83) 105.

2 JHS xiii (18921893) 195226Google Scholar. BMC Jewellery xiii–xx, and 51–6. BMC Finger Rings 115, 145. BICS iv (1957) 2741Google Scholar. BSA lii (1957) 4257Google Scholar. Higgins, R., The Aegina Treasure, an archaeological mystery (London 1979)Google Scholar (henceforth, Aegina Treasure).

3 BMC Jewellery nos. 683, 684. BSA lii (1957) 49, no. 7Google Scholar. Aegina Treasure 33, ill. 30, no. 7. Length, 37.5 & 48 cm.

4 Karo, G., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (Berlin 1930) pl. 39 (top)Google Scholar.

5 Aegina Treasure ills. 11, 14, 15, 22, 59, 62.