Bronze Etruscan armour to make $90,000?

Artemis Gallery will offer a set of bronze Etruscan armour with an estimate of $75,000-90,000.

The piece dates to around 500-450 BC, but remains in excellent condition. That's despite its advanced age and the fact it was recovered from a river in modern day Slovenia.

Etruscan armour river

The set is part of a cache of Etruscan armour found near the town of Negovna, Slovenia

Such finds are more common than you might imagine.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, an awful lot of ancient armour is found submerged in bodies of water.

Some believe this may have been a practice with a religious element, while others have suggested that soldiers fleeing the battlefield would probably have ditched their armour if escaping across rivers or lakes.  

In this case, the action of the water on the bronze has given it a deep and attractive patina.

A Chalcidian bronze helmet from the 5th-4th century BC is estimated to make $60,000-80,000.

It was designed circa 500 BC as an improvement on the Corinthian helmet, which features more face protection but restricted hearing and vision.

It got its name from the city of Chalcis, Greece where the earliest depictions of soldiers wearing it have been found.  

The Chalcidian helmet proved a success and was still in use 200 years later.

The sale will take place in Louisville, Colorado on March 15.

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