Were Late Roman Ridge Helmets Really lined in Leather?

[markusaurelius]

So I think finally some clarity. I spoke today with Dr.Christian Miks, of the RGZ museum in Mainz Germany. He of course recently published the works on the Koblenz helmets and I would argue one of the more knowlegible scholars on the subject. This is what he had to say on the matter.

In regards to the rivets that you see on the Augsburg helmet:

Each of the two cheek-pieces also the neck guard of the ridgehelmets is attached to the helmet bowl by two leather straps. One end of the straps is riveted to the inner rim of the bowl while the other end is fixed (often also with a rivet) at the inner side of the cheek-piece or neck-guard near the upper rim. That are partly the rivets you can see in the row of "stitch-holes" along the rims of the helmet elements.

In regards to leather lining:

But most of the "stitch-holes" were definitely used for fixing the rims of a leathern helmet lining. Best preserved proofs of that function you can find on 5th to 7th century byzantine riveted plate helmets of Baldenheim type. But there are also some indications (for example some traces of leather on the finds from
Koblenz) that affirms the same use of the hole-rows already on the older ridge helmets.

He also confirmed the reconstruction of the right cheek piece of the Duerne helmet, which had incorrectly added rivets on the cheek piece, where the lone rivet was misread (much like I did) as part of a complete set.

He also spoke about the Iatrus helmet, which is in large part a plastic model. The original was not very complete and parts of the helmet, such as the cheek piece shapes are in doubt. The Iatrus helmet also had a gilded copper sheathing over it, however it had no decorations, and it is unknown if it had a nose guard or not.