Left, the excavation area at Daskyleion in Balıkesir province; right, the terracotta Dionysus mask recovered there. Both photographs were taken on 6 September 2020 and distributed by Anadolu Agency (AA).
In the summer of 2020, archaeologists working at Daskyleion in north-western Turkey recovered a small terracotta mask of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and theatre, dated to roughly 2,400 years ago (the 4th century BC). The excavation director, Professor Kaan İren of Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, described it as one of the season's most interesting finds and suggested it was probably a votive object, made to be offered to the god rather than worn on stage.
The mask came from the acropolis of the ancient city, a hill near the village of Ergili in the Bandırma district, close to the shore of Lake Manyas (Kuş Gölü). Below is what the find is, what kind of place Daskyleion was, and why a clay face of Dionysus turning up there is more interesting than a typical "ancient Greek mask found" headline suggests.
What was found and how it was described
The object is a moulded clay face with the features traditionally given to Dionysus: a calm, full face framed by hair and, in many such pieces, a wreath of ivy or vine leaves. Anadolu Agency, which first reported the find and supplied the photographs, did not publish its exact size or the layer it came from, so those details should be treated as still to be published in the excavation reports.
Professor İren's own wording was careful. He called it "possibly a votive mask" and added that more would become clear with further research. Popular retellings went further, claiming that people wore such masks to free themselves from hidden desires and regrets, a kind of ancient confession. That idea reflects a real theme in the cult of Dionysus, a god associated with release and with stepping outside one's usual self, but it is an interpretation of the god's character, not something this particular mask proves.
Daskyleion: a Lydian and Persian city, not a simple Greek town
Many reports described Daskyleion as a Greek settlement. The real story is richer. The site was occupied by Phrygians before 750 BC and later came under the kingdom of Lydia. Ancient tradition says the city was named after Daskylos (Dascylus), the father of the Lydian king Gyges, whose family had links to the area; the name is usually explained as "the place of Daskylos". Some summaries reverse this and say Gyges named it after a king called Daskylos; the more common version is that Daskylos was Gyges' father.
After Cyrus the Great conquered Lydia in 547 BC, Daskyleion became the seat of the Persian satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, one of the important provincial capitals of the Achaemenid Empire in Anatolia. The satrap Pharnabazus governed from here in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC, and the city stayed under Persian control until Alexander the Great's campaign in 334 BC.
So in the 4th century BC, when the mask is thought to have been made, Daskyleion was a Persian administrative centre with a mixed population and strong Greek cultural influence. Greek-style objects at such a site show how far Greek religion, art and craft had spread among Lydian, Phrygian and Persian-era communities, rather than proving that the inhabitants were Greek.
Who Dionysus was and why masks belong to him
Dionysus was the god of wine and the grape harvest, but also of fertility, vegetation, festivity, ritual madness and religious ecstasy. Most importantly for this find, he was the god of theatre. The great dramatic festivals of Athens, the City Dionysia and the Lenaia, were held in his honour, and tragedy and comedy grew out of performances dedicated to him.
Masks run through his worship more than through that of any other Greek god. Actors in Athenian drama performed masked. In some rituals the god himself was represented by a mask hung on a pillar or post and dressed in robes. Painted vases show worshippers dancing around such mask-idols, and dancers in his rites wore masks associated with him. A clay mask of Dionysus is therefore an object that fits naturally into his cult.
The Romans identified Dionysus with Bacchus, a name the Greeks already used for him, and merged him with their native wine god Liber. The Roman Senate restricted Bacchic mystery groups in 186 BC because it saw them as a threat to public order, a reminder that the "wild party" image of the god had a serious religious and political side.
What "votive" means in practice
A votive offering is an object placed in a sacred space as a gift to a god, usually to fulfil a vow or ask for favour, and not meant to be taken back or reused. Greek sanctuaries collected huge numbers of such gifts, from bronze tripods and weapons to cheap clay figurines. Terracotta masks and faces were common votive types in sanctuaries linked to Dionysus and other gods connected with theatre, fertility and the passage of life.
That matters for interpretation. A votive mask need not have holes for the eyes or straps for wearing. It could be a symbolic face that stood for the god or for the worshipper, hung on a wall or set in a shrine. Whether this piece was ever worn would depend on its size, its openings, its attachment points and exactly where it lay, details the specialists will publish later.
The Lydian kitchen and the less glamorous finds
The same season also exposed a cellar belonging to a Lydian-period kitchen on the acropolis. Professor İren explained that the team was running soil from the kitchen and its surroundings through flotation, a technique in which earth is washed in water so that light material such as charred seeds, grain and plant fragments floats to the surface and can be collected.
He said the aim was to learn what people in the area ate around 2,700 years ago. Results like these rarely make headlines, but they tell us about daily life: which crops were grown, what was stored, and how households cooked. They also show that modern excavation is about context and evidence, not only about finding attractive objects for museum cases.
Daskyleion's other discoveries
The site was rediscovered in 1952 and has been excavated almost continuously since then. Tomris Bakır directed the work from 1988 to 2010, after which Kaan İren took over. A year after the mask, in 2021, his team announced a carved relief showing Greek soldiers and Persian horsemen, a rare image of the Greco-Persian conflict from the Persian side of the frontier.
Together, the mask and the relief show why Daskyleion matters: it was a meeting point of Anatolian, Persian and Greek worlds. The face of a Greek god of wine and theatre, found in the capital of a Persian province, is a small but vivid piece of that story.
Common misunderstandings about the find
- "An ancient Greek city in Turkey." Daskyleion was Phrygian, then Lydian, then Persian; Greek culture influenced it strongly, but it was not a Greek colony.
- "Dionysus was only a party god." He was also a god of theatre, fertility and religious experience, honoured with major civic festivals.
- "The mask was worn to confess secrets." This is a modern interpretation; the excavator himself said only that it was possibly votive.
- "Dionysius." The god's name is Dionysus; Dionysius is a separate personal name, borne for example by the tyrants of Syracuse.
Sources: GreeceHighDefinition, reporting Anadolu Agency (14 September 2020); Wikipedia: Dascylium; Wikipedia: Dionysus; Wikipedia: Votive offering. Photographs: Anadolu Agency (AA).
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