H.R.Robinson Helmet Typology

[jkaler48]

I vote for the "mighty tome" option!
It would include:

All known helmets and parts
Detailed color photos
Detailed measurements
Find location and other information
Metallurgical analysis
Charts and graphs
Current/last known location
A section on how to spot fakes
Photos of reconstructions

Be available at your local bookstore and only cost $24.99!!!!

And, as soon as it is published, be out of date with the first new find! And as the body of data grows, the more impractical a dead-tree book becomes. The only option for a comprehensive catalogue of material is an online one (where you could construct as many and varied typologies as took your fancy from the raw data) and it was that idea that I tested with Armamentarium, the drawback being that it cost time and money to produce (you can certainly use community effort to supply the time in a wiki sort of set up but the money for the rights to photos is always the killer and for a proper publication, museum-quality photos would be a must).

Mike Bishop

I like the online resource idea perhaps the RAT helmet database could be
revised into a wiki. One major problem for the "ordinary" person is that
access to helmets is very limited. At the museum: "HI I am Joe Shmo from Idaho can I get your 2000 year old Roman helmets out to measure and photograph them and metal test them?" "And I don't have any credentials and the information will be published free on the internet and you won't get any money for it."