Oriental Influence in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Helmet Traditions in the 9th-7th Centuries B.C.

This monograph is a contribution to the study of the material evidence for contacts between the mainland Near East and the east Mediterranean World between 900 and 600 BC. An orientalizing phase in the cultural development of archaic Greece has long been recognized and consequently much studied, not least through objects of Eastern manufacture and copies of them found in the Greek world. This research has not until now included a systematic study of the evidence provided by copper alloy and iron helmets. This catalogue and commentary assembles all known evidence outside the mainland Near East for the presence and possible cultural and military significance of Oriental helmets in the Greek World, including Cyprus. Its examination of these helmets adds to the general picture of the period, providing a framework for the study not only of helmets, but also of other material indicators of eastern contacts with Greece at this time.