H.R.Robinson Helmet Typology

[Caratacus]

Can´t we come up with something... completely different?

Monty Python? (Sorry - couldn't resist)

Well, yes, I suppose we could! The problem isn't coming up with a new and different system - the problem is agreeing what that system should be.

Let's see (as a starting point only) - (a) Leave out the place names as identifiers, (b) leave out unnecessary sub-groups which show only minor variations, © leave out anything which cannot be verified by looking at the thing (by this I mean if we don't know for certain that it's an infantry helmet, it should not be classified using this term), (d) omit anything based on dates (which cannot often be verified beyond doubt), (e) omit anything requiring a value judgement, 'larger than', 'more than' and so on. So, it might (basing this on the ovolo mnemonic I mentioned above) look something like this :-

(1) What's it made of?: Cu Fe or U (copper, iron or unknown)
(2) What shape is the bowl? B (bulbous), C (conical), H (hemispherical), S (segmented), U (unknown, if damaged - there is likely to be a fair number of 'U' in this)
(3) Is the bowl decorated in any way? Y, N, U
(4) Neck guard (i.e. is there one?): Y, N, U
(5) Neck guard orientation: H (horizontal), S (sloped), N (none)
(6) Brow guard: Y, N, U
(7) Brow guard orientation: H, S, N, U
(8) Are there 'eyebrows'?: Y, N
(9) Crest knob: Y, N
(10) Crest knob decoration? Y, N, U
(11) Is there a face mask? Y, N
(12) Is there ear protection? Y, N
(13) Is it (ear protection) integral to the helmet bowl, or is it applied? I, A, N (none)

.... and so on. I think that you begin to see some of the difficulties in doing something like this. Just 'off the top' trying to establish what criteria could be used gives me more than a dozen symbols to play with. In order to see if this would work, you would have to apply it to specific cases and see whether this resulted in helmets with the same general characteristics turning up in the same group, and also separating those which are genuinely different.

An 'early' Montefortino might end up looking like this: CuBYNNNNNYYNNN, whereas an Imperial Gallic J might be:
FeHNYSYSYNNNYA and so on!

Well, that was fun! But I wonder if we are any better off? :lol:

Such a system would clearly differentiate between grossly different helmet types. It can be made to separate out quite similar ones as well but it depends on how many criteria you want to build into the classification. It would, for example, lump together Robinson's 'late' Montefortinos with the 'D' and 'E' Coolus types (which may be no bad thing anyway - I can't really tell them apart). It would also collapse the IG series down to just a few possibilities (because we would eliminate the value judgement of how wide the neck guard was and the degree of slope it has, ditto for the brow guard here). One other advantage of this is that you can always add to it without disrupting the entire categoriation.

One of the difficulties with any system is the relatively small number of samples we are dealing with. There are now well over 600 hellmets in the RAT database, the majority of which are 'Montefortino' types (and most of those are A and B). Here we are on firm(ish) ground because the pattern is clear for the most part. For the IG series, however, we are restricted to fewer than 50 examples and we can't really tell whether a variation is a genuine 'type' or a one-off Friday-afternoon job! The same falls true for the 'parade' helmets (there are lots of 'em), but the Imperial Italics are even fewer then the IG types!

All of which makes me appreciate even more what HRR achieved more than 30 years ago! Enough, already!

Caratacus
(Dr. Mike Thomas)