DescriptionCopper Alloy Helmet & Crushed Head of Royal Guard PG 789.jpg
English: Copper Alloy Helmet & Crushed Head of Royal Guard.
26th–25th century BCE.
"Hemispherical copper helmet with rounded earflaps. The back of the helmet is damaged. Crushed. There was probably a silver-wire chin strap attached."[1]
This guard (Body 46), aged 18–20,[2] lay at the entrance of the tomb PG 789 (of King Meskalamdug). Groundplan: inside the dromos [entry] ramp.
He was discovered around 1927 by Leonard Woolley.[1]
"PG 789's death pit was undisturbed. At the foot of the access ramp were the bodies of six soldiers, wearing copper helmets and carrying spears. […] the floor of the pit was covered with bodies, fifty-four in all."[3][4]
Another death pit is by the tomb of Queen Puabi nearby.
Mesopotamia 6000-1500 BC Gallery, British Museum, London
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↑ abTamás Dezsö (2001) Near Eastern Helmets of the Iron Age, J. and E. Hedges ISBN: 978-1-84171-193-5. "In the 1927–1928 excavation season at Ur, in the dromos of Tomb 789, Sir Leonard Woolley found six cooper helmets belong to six skeletons of soldiers. The soldiers might be members of a "royal" bodyguard, because their spearheads were decorated with the same symbol: an incised bull’s leg. All the helmets were badly crushed by the weight of the earth"