A rusted lump of iron found at an ancient battlefield in Krefeld, Germany, has revealed itself to be a large fragment from a rare 1st century Roman cavalry mask.

The cavalry mask is of the Nijmegen-Kops type. Only 15 of them are known, most of them found in the former territory of the Batavi, so the type is closely associated with Batavi horsemen. It was attached to the headband of the helmet with a hinge. The emotionless silvered visage was meant to be intimidating for opponents on the battlefield and in hand-to-hand combat.

The Batavi were already intimidating, so famed for their prowess in combat that Rome granted them a special tax and tribute exemption in return for their service in Roman auxiliary infantry, cavalry and in the Augustan-era imperial bodyguards. Out of a population of less than 40,000 Batavi in the 1st century, 5,500 served as elite troops in the Roman military. That means that half of all Batavi men enlisted after they turned 16.

Batavi troops were essential to the conquest of Britain, but after they were withdrawn from Britannia in 66 A.D., tensions rose between the Batavi soldiers and Rome. Gaius Julius Civilis, the son of a Batavi chief who had served in the Roman auxiliaries for 25 years, led to an uprising. He used Roman military tactics against them successfully for a year. In the fall of 69 A.D., Civilis’ crack troops surprised 12,000 Roman legionaries and auxiliaries in their field camp at Gelduba on the left bank of the Rhine. The Batavi entered the camp and started slaughtering, but they weren’t able to finish the job because Roman reinforcements arrived. Technically Rome eked out a victory, but they lost so many men it was Pyrrhic at best.

Since excavations began at the suspected site of the battle in 2017, thousands of relics of the battle have been unearthed, including 200 horse skeletons, armor and weapons. The corroded, lumpy metal plate was brought to the Archaeological Museum in Krefeld for documentation, conservation and study.

The fragment was X-rayed, and when archaeologists saw an eye slit, an ear and a rivet where the helmet attachment likely was, they realized they had a Phantom of the Opera section of a cavalry mask. Using a thin stream of sand, conservators exposed the eye slit and ear  to confirm it was what it seemed to be. The rest of the corrosion will be removed after it spends six months in a lye bath for desalination. Once it is cleaned and conserved, the mask will go on display at the Krefeld Archaeological Museum.

The owner of the largest-ever cachette of Egyptian embalming materials has been identified as the military commander of Egypt’s foreign troops in the late 26th/early 27th Dynasty, (early 6th century B.C.). His name was Wahibre-mery-Neith, and the most important title recorded on his funerary inscriptions was “Commander of Foreign Mercenaries.” That made him responsible for all the muscle Egypt hired, mostly from the Greek islands and Asia Minor, in the desperate attempt to fend off the rising power of Achaemenid  Persia.

The embalming cachette with more than 370 pottery jars full of mummification materials, the largest ever found in Egypt, was discovered by the Czech mission last year. The materials were all ritually buried after they were used to mummify Wahibre-mery-Neit. His name was inscribed on the canopic jars, but not his rank or profession. It was clear from the sheer scale of the cachette that he was someone of very high rank, one of the most important dignitaries of the Late Period.

The shaft tomb next to the cachette was excavated this spring by the Czech archaeological mission from Charles University. The inscriptions in the burial shaft confirm that the tomb belonged to Wahibre-mery-Neith, whose name and the name of his mother Lady Irturu appear on the canopic jars in the cachette.

The main well of the tomb is 20 feet deep and 46 feet square. It is divided into sections by narrow bridges that were cut out of the bedrock. A smaller, deeper shaft (52 feet deep, 21 by 11 feet wide) descends down the center of the main well. There is no other shaft tomb in Egypt with this exact layout.

At the bottom of the deeper well are two sarcophagi nested inside each other. The outer sarcophagus is composed of two massive slabs of white limestone. The inner sarcophagus is anthropoid in shape and carved out of heavy black basalt. It is inscribed with spells from chapter 72 of the Book of the Dead which describe the resurrection of the deceased and his journey to the afterlife.

Looted in antiquity, the inner sarcophagus contained no human remains and very few objects. Only a scarab and a small headrest amulet were found inside the coffin. Looters broke into the outer sarcophagus and smashed the head area of the inner sarcophagus to steal valuables buried with the deceased. Two Coptic vessels found in the main shaft indicate the looting likely took place in the 4th or 5th century A.D.

The double sarcophagus was situated directly on a filling of sand at the bottom of the burial shaft. Within the shaft, at the western and eastern sides of the sarcophagus, rather sparse burial equipment has originally been placed. At the east, several items were excavated intact and in situ: two wooden boxes with altogether 402 faience shabtis (servant figures who were to undertake labour instead of the owner in the afterlife), two uninscribed alabaster canopic jars, a faience model of an offering table, ten model cups and a limestone ostracon inscribed with religious texts written in black ink and hieratic script. Due to the limited space, the author of the text decided to cover the ostracon with brief excerpts from the Book of the Dead spells that also formed parts of the ritual of transfiguration and thus guarantying an undisturbed afterlife existence of the owner. […]

Although the archaeological excavation of the burial of Wahibre-mery-Neith did not offer many excavated objects or an elaborate funerary equipment, it is unique and important, as it offers new insights into the troubled period of the beginning of Persian dominion in Egypt. In combination with outcomes of the ongoing research on the owner’s embalming deposit, a picture of Wahibre-mery-Neith’s life, family background and professional career starts to emerge. He most probably died very unexpectedly, when his tomb and burial equipment were still unfinished. Thus, both the layout of his tomb and its contents provide very valuable information on the importance and meaning of individual parts of the burial equipment and tomb decoration. It also shows us how the ancient Egyptian adapted the material culture of their religious beliefs under difficult circumstances and in times of crisis when the indigenous character of ancient Egyptian civilisation started to vanish.