Late Roman iron helmet

[Robert Vermaat]

Could this be a 'missing link' between those all-enclosing 3rd century cavalry helms and the bare simplicity of the ridge helmet used from Diocletian onwards?
The switch and lack of any evolution has always been (to my mind anyway) incredibly and unsually dramatic.

A missing link, sure, I tend to think so too, for want of a secure dating.
But 'incredible dramatic', not nessecarily so. I mean, we hardly have helmets from the Eastern provinces during this period.
I mean, apart from an early spangenhelm (Leiden Museum) and the Deir el Medineh helmet (also a spangenhelm), both from Egypt, I know of no Late Roman helmet from the East.

And since we can be fairly sure that the origin of the ridge helmets goes back to Sassanid helmets, I think we may assume that any development would have first taken place in the Eastern provinces. For some reason, none has been found there (yet, I hope).

But helmets such as this one from Christie's could signify that 'missing' evolution, which may have been far less 'dramatic' than the 'sudden' occurrance of the ridge helmets in the West has made us think so far.