The Mask of Agamemnon
In a previous post, I mentioned Grave Circle A, which in the story is the burial ground of the Perseid kings, and which was sensationally excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century.
Tradition said Agamemnon and his followers were buried inside the citadel walls. When the ancient travel writer Pausanias visited Mycenae in the 2nd century A.D., the locals pointed out the ruins of Grave Circle A as the king's burial place, so when Schliemann came centuries later, his copy of Pausanias in hand, he dug where tradition told him to dig. And when he encountered the standing stones and the five shaft graves underneath, all right where Pausanias said they would be, it only confirmed in his mind that he was digging in the right place. He even found two infants, which could only be Cassandra's two babies, killed with her.
Of course, the graves were far too early for the Trojan War, but dated from 1550-1500 B.C. They weren't even a single burial, as you might expect with a murdered king and his slain companions, but had been added to over the course of a century. And there weren't five graves, as the legend called for, because a sixth grave later turned up. Schliemann simply found what he wished to find.
Among the marvelous objects Schliemann and his excavators discovered was a famous gold death mask which nowadays is known as the "Mask of Agamemnon." As the story goes, Schliemann lifted the mask from the skull it rested upon, and briefly saw a wonderfully preserved face underneath. Then he kissed the mask, which, because of its fine craftsmanship and regal bearing, he assumed must be that of the legendary king. That night, he sent a telegram to the king of Greece stating, "I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon."
It's a lovely anecdote, but that's all it is. Those weren't Schliemann's exact words, the body he was said to have lifted the mask from was a different one, and the mask most definitely had not covered the face of a historical Agamemnon, but some unknown king who lived three hundred years earlier.
Agamemnon, if he existed, would have been buried in one of the great tholos tombs near Mycenae. So what was behind that tradition about being buried inside the walls? In the Late Bronze Age, Mycenae was more than just the citadel mount. It had a walled lower town which would have enclosed the Treasury of Atreus, the Tomb of Clytaemnestra, and the Lion Tomb; any of these monuments could have been the actual burial place.
The mask would have been manufactured by beating sheet gold over a wooden form and working in the details. It was not meant to be a death mask in the modern sense. Through other finds, and some forensic reconstruction, it's clear now that the Mycenaeans either didn't grasp the concept of portraiture, or didn't see the need to produce an exact likeness; the death masks were ritual artifacts, not effigies.
You may notice that the death mask bears a striking resemblance to a certain Scottish actor. Perhaps that's why Sean Connery was cast as Agamemnon in the 1981 film Time Bandits.