On 21 April, 2009, in the Arabian Hall of the Winter Palace the Secret of the Golden Mask exhibition was opened.

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 were initiated 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. During the excavation near the village Glinische there was found a stone sarcophagus. Inside it the archaeologist found a skeleton of a woman; the whole body was covered with golden plaques, the head was decorated with a wide golden wreath and the face was covered with a golden mask. Inside the sarcophagus and around it there were found a lot of items made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and even leather. Particular interest was caused by a big silver tray on the back side of which the name of the king Reskuporid was engraved. There was emerged a theory that the wife of the Bosporus ruler had been buried in the sarcophagus.

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.

For the first time all of these items from this tomb stored in the Hermitage Museum are demonstrated to the visitors. Before the exhibition was organised the specialists from the Hermitage Museum and other Russian and foreign scientific centres had thoroughly researched the archive materials and the items from the barrow.

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.

More

Alexander Butyagin, Curator of the exhibition, and Georgy Vilinbakhov, Deputy Director of the State Hermitage

Funerary Mask from Ancient Egypt

Funerary Garland from the Burial with Gold Mask, Kerch

Catalogue of the exhibition

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