#getodacii

Dacian artifact from Piatra Roşie. It is still a subject of debate as to if it is a umbo (boss) shield or a gate decoration.

Source: Romanian National History Museum. 

The ancient golden Helmet of Coţofeneşti, is a Geto-Dacian helmet dating from the first half of the 4th century BC. The helmet was uncovered by chance by a child on the territory of the village of Poiana Coţofeneşti (now Poiana Vărbilău), Romania.

This is an exceptionally well preserved helmet, missing only the part of its skull cap. It is made of pure gold, almost a kilogram in weight, and displays the “autochthonous character” of this artwork. The helmet is decorated with two large apotropaic eyes, intended to ward off the evil eye and magical spell. It is believed to have once belonged to an unknown local Geto-Dacian local aristocratic noble or a king from around 400 BC.

One theory suggests that this item was the sacred helmet of Zalmoxis, the living god-prophet of the Dacians. It has, however, never been proven.

The extensive decorations depict an illustration, (on either cheek-piece), of a ritual enactment, as well as depictions of a range of mythical creations.

The cheek-pieces of the Poiana-Coţofeneşti helmet show a ram being sacrificed by a man who kneels on its body and is about to cut its throat with a short knife. The iconography on the right side of the helmet is of a great interest, and has been interpreted in light of the tauroctony scene from the Mithraic Mysteries. Environment and affluence might well account for a change to a larger beast in the species offered and a similar interpretation of a bull-slaying episode. This sacrifice of the ram might have been performed by the “king-priest-god”

The pair of Voracious Beasts on the Coţofeneşti neck-guard occupy a lower register along with a similar creature deprived of a victim’s leg. This motif of the “Voracious Beast” is found earlier in Assyrian art, and was popular among the Etruscans. Phoenicia was probably the intermediary for its transferral to Italy and around the Adriatic, but Voracious Beast must also have traveled through Asia Minor to appear in a North Thracian idiom not only on the Coţofeneşti neck-guard but also in high relief on the base of the Aghighiol beakers (Agighiol is a village near the Danube Delta in eastern Romania).

The upper register displays a row of three seated or squatting winged creatures, rather monkey-like with human faces, long forearms, and long tails. These, however, are surely direct, if run-down, descendants of the sphinxes on a gold beaker from Amlash.

The decorations such as rosette, strips, triangles, spiral and others are specific Geto-Dacian art motifs. The scene of sacrifice the ram is an oriental Iranian theme that entered in the Greek art and from there in the ‘barbarian’ art. Therefore, the helmet seems to have been realized in a Greek workshop. But, in the same time the awkward technique of execution that contrasts with the perfect technique of a Greek craftsman points out to an autochthonous one.

Source:  National Museum of Romanian History.