Mask of Agamemnon
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| Mycenaean funerary gold mask. Found in Tomb V in Royal circle A at the Acropolis of Mycenae. Unearthed during excavations at Mycenae in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann who believed it to belong to the Homeric hero Agamemnon. In Greek mythology, Agamemnon, was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was abducted by Paris of Troy, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War.
On Agamemnon’s return from Troy he was murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife Clytemnestra. In old versions of the story: “The scene of the murder, when it is specified, is usually the house of Aegisthus, who has not taken up residence in Agamemnon’s palace, and it involves an ambush and the deaths of Agamemnon’s followers too”. In some later versions Clytemnestra herself does the killing, or they do it together, in his own home. |
