RomanArmyTalk

In 2002 helmet fragments were presented to us, a group of reeanactors, during an information evening.
The person who showed it to us was at that moment the senior archaeologist of that excavation campaign on that site.
The dating was then and still is 3th century AD.

One person in our group identified the fragments of being from a possible Sarmatian helmet, we didn't know at that moment the dating.

The picture is from:
Bredase Akkers, 4000 jaar bewoningsgeschiedenis op de rand van zand en klei.
C.W. Koot, R. Berkvens. RAM102 Breda 2004.
ISBN: 90-5799-056-3.

What is your opinion?

There are also some pieces of a, according to the text, bronze bucket (situla) in this picture.

So not everything belongs to the helmet.
Dating was done with help of the ceramic fragments, which were found in and around the waterpit (nr20) where the helmet was found.

Very interesting find - LAUDES

BTW, the book can be downloaded from the following site:

http://archeologie.breda.nl/2007/home/home.asp?lni=nl

There is also another photo of the helmet.

The general form is reminescent of the later Spangenhelme or the helmets of "oriental" archers shown on Trajan's column (also believed to be of Sarmatian inspiration). However, I am not aware of any Spangenhelm where the segments were directly riveted to each other and the few specimens of earlier conical helmets were all one piece constructions, I believe.

It would appear that the elongated strip to the right with the holes for a lining was riveted to the basis of the individual segments.

Very interesting indeed.

Nice post Garrelt - but then you promised me this already at LRE I back in 2005! :twisted:

It's a clear spangenhelm alright, but how conical is it? Would you say it's possible that the top was pressed together, to get this very conical shape? Or would you say this is the original shape?

Is this the other picture?

Sorry i will make it up to you , must have been very late that evening by the campfire.

It looks that the spangen/plates are built up as the, viking, Polish Great helm.
Made out of 4 triangular plates, where the top forms a holder for feathers or horsehair.

http://members.aol.com/yellowhgwy/confour.jpg

That is what i mean.

wow ! ...it's really late construction of conical helmet - very popular between 7-10 th cen. in Near East some part of Easten Europe and some part of Asia

usually exemples made by 4 pieces are later than 8-pieces helmets...but just usually - it's not the law :wink:


I'm not sure of the dating ...but who knows..
....really interesting thing !


...there's no "Polish Great" style - this type is called "Chernichov type" or "Charnaya Mogyla type" or type II by Kirpichnikov .....from Poland we know only 5 helmets in this type from 10-11th cen....but this is not polish invention

Last weekend i was told that this only could be a helmet for an Archer.
This answer is open for discussion.
Paralles could be two more helmets with one found with arrows in the context with the helmet.
I didn't catch the names of the locations where the other two were found.
But i will not be surprised that it could be somewhere in the Balkans.

The dating is correct, the helmet was found in context with a well and comtemperary ceramic finds.

I know there are more Polish helmets, but this one description came to mind.

Interesting find

Examples of four piece helms are certainly rare to non existant for this age, the earliest I have seen are C7th from Transoxania and are lower crowned than this example.

Ospreys 'Attila the Hun' has a Goth warrior wearing what I thought at the time a rather dubious helm of similar construction. As usual no back up sources or references apart from 'southern Russia, location unknown' :roll:

in my opinion Osprey isn't good source for reconstruction making ...espasially in the case of dating some artefacts

as, I said in the same period we got 2 others construction - 4 and 8 pieces

exemples below (helmets from 8-9th cen. from Ukraine)

This helmet is in the Hermitage in St.Peterburg, Russia. It is dubbed Sarmatian, dates to first century, was discoverd in Roslov. They kindly allowed me a few pictures, which I have sent to Jasper for the helmet database, along with two Greeks (500 BC and 750 BC). I will add one here, if you use it for ANYTHING other than looking at it, quote the source (not me, Hermitage!) I recently scrounged through their exhibits, some of the ones I liked best (pre-history, which is mostly bronze and iron age) are tucked into the basement, all info in Cyrilic Russian. Great gravefinds with good displays. Painting are for the birds (and other toerists). Life as a ISO 14001 consultant is hell!

this helmet is from sarmatian grave and from sarmatian area ,but it
doesn't mean it's really sarmatian ?

see this elaborate :
http://www.archaeology.ru/EREMENKO/sarm ... index.html

it's: "La Tene imports in sarmatian graves from Black Sea Area. Problems with interpretation."

...the image of this helmet we can find on the drow nr 2

so, I think this case isn't cristal yet

Salve Patryk!

Thanks for the interesting link. I did not say it WAS Sarmatian, I said is was dubbed Sarmatian. The link with La Tene is most interesting, as I was not aware of helmets like this. Something to learn each day