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The Jewelled Headdress of Princess Maxtra was a golden diadem with glittering jewels. It was said that the image of a screaming woman could be seen in it. (PROSE: Tarnished Image)
The origins of the headdress were unclear. The Azmec Corporation claimed it was created by the native race of Tarron, a race extinct long before the colonists arrived. When the First Doctor revealed that the Azmec account of the past was a lie, this story was thrown into doubt. The Tarronians rejected their history entirely, and asked the Doctor to dispose of the headdress along with other artefacts claimed by Azmec to be historically significant. The Doctor dropped the items out of the TARDIS while in the Time Vortex. (PROSE: Tarnished Image)
Cast onto the time-winds, the diadem ended up on Earth, where it was discovered as part of a cache of jewelry by Heinreich Schliemann when he was excavating Troy in 1873. He called the collection the Jewels of Helen, and his wife was famously photographed wearing the diadem. It was then lost in Berlin in 1945, before being rediscovered by David Gosthorpe prior to his death in 1987.
Unconcerned about the money it could bring him, David hid the diadem in his ancestral castle, and died penniless. His sister Ellen Carter, determined to rebuild the family fortune by selling the headdress to the highest bidder, located it despite the Fifth Doctor advising her to leave it in the past. When she put it on, however, she suffered a powerful psychic attack that killed her. The Doctor concluded that the diadem was psychic technology, using the wearer's own psychic energy to enhance their appearance. He speculated that, while there was no evidence it was ever worn by Helen of Troy, such a power would explain her legendary beauty. He was unsure why it had killed Ellen, suggesting it might have been a malfunction or that she somehow triggered a security feature. Nyssa threw the headdress into the castle lake.
After the Doctor and Nyssa had left, however, the diadem shone brightly from the water, the screaming face now that of Ellen. (PROSE: Past Reckoning)