It was great to be back in Athens for a couple of days. The National Archaeological Museum, which I first visited in 1981, still elicits wonder. One of the first faces that greets you is the gold foil Mycenaean death mask that the excavator Heinrich Schliemann fancifully called ‘the face of Agamemnon’. He wasn’t right, but it hardly mattered. Recently doubts about its authenticity have been raised, but this golden mask still serves as a potent entry point to the history of the ancient world.