thrakian glad hat construction assistance required

[richard robinson]

Ave
I am currently modifying an Indian import so that it is closer in detail to the real thing.
I am unable to ascetain whether the (nasal) reinforce holder/ stopper on the famous Thracian helmet depicted on the front cover of Kohne and Ewigleben's "Gladiators and Caesars" is actually riveted to the face plates (thus rendering them undetachable) or to another "reinforce" plate that is part of the helmet propper.
Does anybody know?
AND is the reinforce strip/ bar riveted to one side of the face mask? If so which one and where are the rivets placed?
Thanking all in anticipation of being set straight
Regards
Richard from Armidale Australia

[Olaf]

Hi,
maybe I can help with some pictures:

and

Though I am not sure that this is a Copy or the Original as its displayed at the Colosseum currently.

More of the Original can be found in my Flickr gallery here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40060535@N ... 107112578/

[richard robinson]

Thankyou Olaf
A picture paints a thousand words.
btw
I enjoy your work with your group. It's brilliant.
regards
Richard

[Peroni]

Something that has always raised a question with me is that the eye grilles are hinged for movement, and yet riveted firmly to the faceplate by the tab at the bottom of the grille - not allowing the movement! why not simply rivet then on in the first place?!

[M. CVRIVS ALEXANDER]

Something that has always raised a question with me is that the eye grilles are hinged for movement, and yet riveted firmly to the faceplate by the tab at the bottom of the grille - not allowing the movement! why not simply rivet then on in the first place?!

A suggestion - those would be more prone to get broken, and this type of attachment would allow to replace them easily - simply pop the pin out, and you can remove the grille, put in the new one, and reinsert the pin. No grinding the rivets down/re-riveting required.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Are those not pivoting lockbars?

[Peroni]

A suggestion - those would be more prone to get broken, and this type of attachment would allow to replace them easily - simply pop the pin out, and you can remove the grille, put in the new one, and reinsert the pin. No grinding the rivets down/re-riveting required.

yes, that makes good sense!

[john m roberts]

The gladiator visors were amazingly ramshackle affairs, made of six or eight separate pieces when a single, pierced plate would have sufficed. They were just overgrown cheekplates, with a reinforcing bar connecting them and eye grills added as an afterthought. And Roman armorers kept on making them that way for centuries. Any medieval armorer would have looked at that rickety construction and thought, "Hell, I can do better than that." But it never occurred to the Romans to do it any way except the way it had always been done. They were a conservative lot.

[Olaf]

I think you are both right.
As Junkelmann points out, the full visors on Gladiator helmets developed from ever enlarging cheek pieces, growing together to meet in the middle of the face.
Addding grills to protect the eyes were just the last step in this development form open faced helmets to closed visors.
After that the grills grew bigger themselves until they became predominat in the Berlin type helmets.

[john m roberts]

And in the Berlin-type helmets, the cheekplates had shrunk to mere supporting struts, yet they were connected to the main helmet body by hinges, as if they were still cheekplates. Sometimes we are dealing with a mentality that is simply very different from our own. It's as if a 21st century military rifle still had a vestigial, nonfunctioning flintlock action tacked onto its side.

[richard robinson]

My friend Matt Bryant assumes that the face plates have been brazed to the helmet proper as there are no obvious attachment points on this helmet- only the cf rivet above the brim and that - I would love to know- supports what?

Love to hear your ideas
regards
Richard

[Olaf]

In Peter Connolly "Colosseum - Arena of Death" there are exploded views of the construction of these helmets.
He shows the Chieti Type like this one and also the Pompeji type and Secutor helmet construction.
The Visors are attached to hinges on the inside of the helmets bowl.
These hinges are attached to a curved metal sheet themselves that is rivited to the bowl with single rivets at the front and both sides.
Thats why you see this single rivet at the forehead.