Helmet of Coțofenești

The Golden Helmet of Coțofenești is a Geto-Dacian helmet dating from the first half of the 4th century BC.

In 1929, a child named Traian Simion uncovered the helmet by chance on the territory of the village of Poiana Coțofenești (now called Poiana Vărbilău), Prahova County, Romania, in the location called "Vârful Fundăturii".

Thereupon, Ioan Andrieșescu, professor of Prehistory at the Bucharest University conducted a thorough investigation at the site. The team of archaeologists noticed that helmet was not part of a gold treasure or grave but it was part of a local Geto-Dacian La Tène settlement. Archaeologists concluded that the helmet was a stray find, as only a few late Hallstatt pottery fragments were found, some of them wheeled. The helmet is kept at the National History Museum of Romania (inv 11420).

Almost a kilogram heavy, the gold helmet is very well preserved, missing only the part of its skull cap. The form of the helmet and its decorations reveal the autochthonous character of this Geto-Dacian artwork. The helmet is decorated with large studs on the top of the skull and two very large apotropaic eyes, meant to ward off the evil eye and magic spells. It was established that it belonged to an unknown local Geto-Dacian king or to a local aristocratic noble, from around year 400 BC . One theory — without any poof, however — is that this item was the sacred helmet of Zalmoxis, the living god-prophet of the Dacians.

Helmet decorations depict a range of mythical creatures, and an illustration, on either cheek-piece, of a ritual enactment.

The cheek-pieces of the Poiana-Coțofenești 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" .

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