Name: Monomachos Crown
What it is: A series of enameled gold panels
Where it is from: Ivanka pri Nitre, a village in central Slovakia
When it was made: Between A.D. 1042 and 1050
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What it tells us about the past:
In 1860, a farmer was tilling a field in central Slovakia when he unearthed a spectacular paneled gold Byzantine crown. For more than a century, experts have argued whether it belonged to the 11th-century ruler Constantine IX Monomachos and how the crown ended up on the far northern reaches of the Byzantine Empire.
Constantine IX reigned from 1042 to 1055. His last name Monomachos — meaning “one who fights alone,” or essentially “the gladiator” in Greek — distinguished him as part of an aristocratic family that was active in the politics of the Byzantine Empire. But he was not born into the royal family and ruled as emperor only because he was the spouse of Empress Zoë, and they shared the throne with Zoë’s sister Theodora.
The Monomachos Crown, in the collection of the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, consists of seven gold plates, each with a rounded top and colorful enamel decorations. The largest of the plates is 4.5 inches (11.5 centimeters) tall and depicts Constantine IX holding a cavalry standard in his right hand and a purple silk roll in his left, which were both imperial symbols of leadership. An inscription in Greek on the central panel reads, “Constantine, Emperor of the Romans, the Monomachos.”
Flanking Constantine IX are panels depicting Empress Zoë on his right and Empress Theodora on his left. Both are labeled as “most pious” in Greek. Rounding out the crown are four panels decorated with dancers and the personification of two Virtues: Justice and Humility.
According to the Hungarian National Museum, the symmetrical holes on the sides of the gold plates may mean they were originally attached to a fabric cap rather than fastened together into a stand-alone crown.
But the meaning of the crown and the person who really owned it have been debated for decades.
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In 1994, Byzantine scholar Nikolaos Oikonomides argued that the crown was actually a 19th-century forgery, basing this claim on unusual choices in the imperial clothing, errors in the Greek inscriptions, along with the crown’s discovery in present-day Slovakia, far from the seat of imperial Byzantine power in Istanbul.
But art historian Etele Kiss rebutted those claims in a 2000 study, pointing out similarities between the imperial clothing and other Byzantine art, the fact that the Greek errors are largely accents that suggest a simple shift in pronunciation, and noting the crown may have ended up in Nitra as a diplomatic gift from Constantine IX to a local ruler.
The Monomachos Crown is one of only three surviving Byzantine crowns, but it is currently impossible to draw final conclusions about many aspects of it, Kiss said. Additional research is needed to fully understand the significance of the gold paneled headwear.
