In Hellenistic culture, a mural crown identified tutelary deities such as the goddess Tyche, and Hestia. The high cylindrical polos of Cybele too could be rendered as a mural crown in Hellenistic times, specifically designating the mother goddess as patron of a city. of Antioch, Roman version of a 3rd-century BC bronze by Eutychides The mural crown became an ancient Roman military decoration. The corona muralis was a golden crown, or a circle of gold intended to resemble a battlement, bestowed upon the soldier who first climbedthe wall of a besieged city or fortress to successfully place the standard of the attacking army upon it. The Roman mural crown was made of gold, and decorated with turrets, as is the heraldic version. As it was among the highest order of military decorations, it was not awarded to a claimant until after a strict investigation. The rostrata mural crown, composed of the rostra indicative of captured ships, was assigned as naval prize to the first in a boarding party, similar to the naval crown. The Graeco-Roman goddess Roma's attributes on Greek coinage usually include her mural crown, signifying Rome's status as a loyal protector of Hellenic city-states.
Heraldic use
The Roman military decoration was subsequently employed in European heraldry, where the term denoted a crown modeled after the walls of a castle, which may be tinctured or, argent, gules, or proper. In 19th-century Germany, mural crowns came to be adopted for the arms of cities, with increasingly specific details: "Residential cities and capital towns usually bear a Mauerkrone with five towers, large towns one with four towers, smaller towns one with three", observed Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, in A Complete Guide to Heraldry, adding "Strict regulations in the matter do not yet exist" and warning that the usage was not British. In recent times, mural crowns were used, rather than royal crowns, for medieval and modern Italian comune. A mural-crowned lady, Italia Turrita, personifies Italy. In Italy, comuni and some provinces and military corps have mural crowns on their coats of arms: gold with five towers for cities, and silver with nine-towered for others. The coat of arms of the Second Spanish Republic had a mural crown. In the early 20th centuryPortugal established strict rules for its municipal heraldry, in which each coat of arms contains a mural crown, with three silver towers signifying a village or an urban parish, four silver towers representing a town, five silver towers standing for a city and five gold towers for a capital city. The Portuguese rules are also applied to most municipal coats of arms of Brazil and some other members of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. Romanian municipal coats of arms contain a mural crown, with one or three towers for villages and communes, five and seven towers for towns and municipalities. The eagle on the coat of arms of Austria wears a mural crown to signify its status as a republic. This is in contrast to the royal crowns that adorned the double-headed eagle in the coat of arms of Austria-Hungary until their defeat in World War I. The mural-crowned eagle was abandoned under the clerico-fascistFederal State of Austria from 1934, but was reinstated in Allied-occupied Austria following World War II and remains in place to this day.
