H.R.Robinson Helmet Typology

[Caratacus]

Perhaps level 2 should be not whether the helmet is infantry or cavalry, (for the most part this is reasonably obvious from the form of the helmet itself) but whether it is of Montefortino, Coolus, Weisenau, Ribchester Heddernheim etc etc ad nausium.

Well, if we do this we are no further forward than we were to start with - back discussing whether a helmet is Montefortino or Coolus. We could simply add one further category to Level 2: "undecided".

Republic gets quite difficult. There is already a working typology after region of origin, mainly.

There is? Then why are we bothering? Surely Republilcan Rome is easy - just M or C (for infantry at least). This illustrates just some of the difficulty of attempting a typology based on dates. Concentrate on the physical characteristics of the helmets - that's all we need to consider. Anything else is a red herring. I repeat - we do not have reliable dates in the majority of cases and any tytpology must work for ALL CASES!

I suggest for discussion for the period beginning with Caesar

There were Romans before there was Caesar.

When considering a typology, I think we should appreciate that HRR didn't do too bad a job of things. There are problems with deciding whether a helmet is M or C, there are considerations as to whether a division between IG and II is a fair one (i.e. whether it really exists at all) and there may be things that we have to consider wrt to cavalry helmets (possibly too many, or even too few sub-divisions?) There may also be questions concerning the Agen-Port types (why are these considered together? They are really very different in appearence - whatever their origins.)

Caratacus
(Mike Thomas)