The Mystery of the Golden Mask
21 April 2009 - 6 September 2009

There are altogether three golden masks stored in the State Hermitage Museum collection. They belong to the different time periods although they were found relatively not far from each other. Without any doubts the most amasing of them is the mask from the so-called Reskuporid tomb.

Archaeological researches in the south of Russia began in 1830 with the excavation of the Kul-Oba barrow located near Kerch. In 1837 fortune turned to the Director of the Kerch Museum Anton Ashik. At the time he was carrying out an excavation of a big barrow near the village Glinische where one of the biggest cemeteries of Panticapaeum, the capital of the Bosporus kingdom which emerged in the 5th century B.C. out of the Greek colonies alongside the Kerch passage, used to be situated. Inside the barrow the archaeologist found a stone sarcophagus. Inside it there was a skeleton of a woman, presumably a queen. Her body was covered with the golden plaques and the head was decorated with a golden wreath but it was not that impressed the pioneer most of all. The face of the dead woman was covered with a golden mask with magnificently done portrait features. There was no other finds like this one on the antique Bosporus necropolises. Inside the sarcophagus and around it there were found a lot of items made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and even skin. Particular interest was caused by a big silver tray on the back side of which the name of the king Reskuporid was engraved. Immediately there was emerged a theory that the wife of the Bosporus ruler had been buried in the sarcophagus.

The Emperor Nicholas I saw the items from the tomb with the golden mask at the exhibition organised for his arrival in Kerch. He viewed the objects with great interest and ordered to send them to St. Petersburg. Several secondary items remained in the Kerch Museum and were lost later on.

Along with the golden mask and the wreath among the other items there were a small golden flask with a lid richly decorated with garnets, two wide bracelets, earrings shaped as amphoras, a simple golden grivna, several signet rings, about three hundred plaques sewn to the clothes or the cloth which covered the dead person. Also the remains of a necklace and several beads were found. A simple bronze mirror and the remains of a golden spindle, a big number of silver and bronze vessels (several jugs among them), spoons, a kettle, a ladle, a round vessel with a lid richly decorated with reliefs, a ladle and a giant bronze basin are presented. The remains of the two sets of plaques left from the horse bridle should be particularly noted. On the plaques there are images of tamga - the Sarmat tribal sign. Also a bronze leg and facing of some furniture pieces were found.

Such a diverse set of items draw the attention of the scientists. A lot of details of the burial described by the pioneer caused doubts of the specialists. Some of the things like the mirror and the spindle were typical for a tomb of a woman but the harness and the iron swords are more typical for a tomb of a man. Could it be that the tomb belonged not to a woman but to a man - the king Reskuporid himself? On the other hand there were six rulers of Bosporus with this name! And whom did the woman’s items belong to? The specialists were also puzzled with a mismatch of the items from the barrow dated back to the 2nd to the 4th century A.D. which is very unusual for a one-time burial.

The exhibition in the Arabian Hall of the Winter Palace for the first time demonstrates to the visitors all of the objects from the so-called Reskuporid tomb which are stored in the State Hermitage Museum collection. Before the exhibition was organised the specialists from the Hermitage Museum and other Russian and foreign scientific centres thoroughly researched the archive materials and the items from the barrow. They found out that the mask portrays a male face. Most of the items from the tomb date back to the 3rd century A.D. Nevertheless it can be suggested that there were two burials, one following another, made in the barrow - of a woman and of a man. The first one was made in the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. and the second one - in the beginning of the 4th century A.D. The repeated use of the barrows was customary for those times. It is most probable that Anton Ashik conducted several excavations in different places as many of the archaeologists of that time used to do and was not present at the opening of the sarcophagus himself. He made the conclusion about the tomb of a queen upon seeing the set of the items, part of which was situated outside the sarcophagus and belonged to the first burial. Still, it is the only one of the theories and the golden mask hasn’t revealed all of its secrets yet.

The masks were rarely used during the burials in the antique times in the Northern Black Sea region. In the Hermitage Museum collection there is one more mask from a barrow near the ancient Greek colony Olvia and another one with carved eye-, nose- and mouth-holes from a Sarmat barrow in Podneprovie (territory along the Dnepr River). Several more masks are exhibited for comparison - from Ancient Egypt, the barrows of Tashtyk culture in the central Siberia and an iron battle mask (face cover) from a Polovets barrow. The exposition allows to see how different was the face covering of the dead in various ancient cultures.

A scientific illustrated catalogue was prepared by the State Hermitage Publishing House to the exhibition.

The curator of the exhibition is Alexander Butyagin, the senior research scientist and the Head of the Northern Black Sea Sector of the Art and Culture of Antiquity Department of the State Hermitage Museum.

Basin with Medusa masks under the handles
1st-2nd century A.D.
Larger view

Basin with Medusa masks under the handles (detail)
1st-2nd century A.D.
Larger view

Mask with eyes and mouth apertures
1st-2nd century A.D.
Larger view

Funerary Garland
2nd-3rd century A.D.
Larger view

Funerary Garland (detail)
2nd-3rd century A.D.
Larger view

Funerary Mask
2nd-3rd century A.D.
Larger view

Funerary Mask
2nd-3rd century A.D.
Larger view

Female skull Mask
3rd-4th century A.D.
Larger view