But of all the specimens of antique armor and arms in this (and possibly in any other) museum, none surpasses the helmet shown in our frontispiece. This helmet, together with fragments of armor, a shield rim and a spear point, all now in the Museum, was found in a tomb near Metaponto, in Southern Italy, where once there was a Greek colony. It is believed to date from about the middle of the sixth century B.C. The helmet is of bronze, the upper part of the bowl formed as the neck and head of a ram. This is surmounted by a great crest of silver, resting on a support of ivory. The cheek pieces of the helmet have rams’ heads in profile embossed in relief. The eyes, the horns of the main ram’s head, the ivory crest holder and part of the silver crest are restorations, but enough original fragments of the crest were found with the helmet to indicate exactly how the crest was shaped. Moreover the existence of such metallic crests is verified by a bronze statuette of similar origin (Fig. 6). [Illustration: _Fig. 4. A crossbow lock two thousand years old, with a model to show how the parts interlock. An ingenious bit of early mechanical engineering._] At first glance, the helmet proclaims itself a great work of sculpture, and proves that arms and armor can properly belong in a museum of art. How very well this piece deserves its place here is still more apparent on close examination. It seems incredible that so long ago a craftsman could, without any of our modern tools, have formed from a single plate of bronze such a deep and difficult forging as this helmet bowl. It is equally amazing that, in a period still considered as archaic, his artistic imagination could have produced so naturalistic yet so noble a rendition of an animal form. The technical skill and taste of the engraving and embossing are also noteworthy: the suggestion of locks of hair around the forehead, the eyebrows which terminate as snakes’ heads, the suggestions of skin texture on the rams’ heads. It is indeed one of the world’s masterpieces of armor. Although the Greeks made their armor out of bronze, they did have knowledge of iron, at least as early as the fifth century B.C. But it was extremely difficult for them to prepare, as they had not yet discovered efficient methods of smelting it from iron ore, so that what little they had was very precious. It could not be spared for making armor, but was restricted to edged weapons where a relatively small amount of this hard new metal could be most effective. The Romans too used iron, and as their technical skill improved they used more and more of it.