Montefortino side plumes?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

But it's an easy one to make! Several people have noticed this anomally on a few sites.....

[Crispvs]

I am reminded of an anecdote about the great Sir Arthur Evans. Having come up with his elegant system of pottery dating, defining periods of Early Minoan 1, Early Minoan 2, Middle Minoan 1a, Middle Minoan 1b, Middle Minoan 2a etc, one of his assistants came to him with a piece of pottery and asked him if it was Middle Minoan 2a of Middle Minoan 2b.

Evans leant back, studied the piece carefully and then said: "I do not believe that it is written that King Minos woke up one morning, looked out of his window and said: I am tired of Middle Minoan 2a. I think I shall begin Middle Minoan 2b today".

Dividing lines between types are not always clear and it is not always clear that they were evident to the original manufacturers either. In all likelihood, many of the typologies we use are entirely modern and would not be recognised by the ancients themselves.

For what it's worth, my feeling when I saw the picture was that the feather tubes were all attached to a long copper-alloy strip which passed over the top of the helmet in the same way as th one Henk posted up. As I understand it, this was quite a common cresting method on the Italian peninsular.

Crispvs

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Getting back to feather tubes on montefortino's, there is a drawing in the database of a monte wit hside holders for either feathers or perhaps brushs...

[MeinPanzer]

I base my idea about this helme on the Greek lettering and on the basis of my understanding the depicted helmet on the relief cannot imho be any other helmet than

Firstly, the lettering of the proxeny decree has absolutely nothing to do with the helmet depicted. It is a proxeny decree written by a Greek city in Sicily for a Roman - of course it is going to be written in Greek. However, as I state in my original post, items depicted on proxeny decrees usually reflect the person receiving the citizenship, and not the city offering it.

Secondly, there is no evidence here that it is an Attic helmet. We don't see any volutes or any other general indication of the characteristics of this helmet. However, it does match exactly the characteristics of the contemporary Montefortino, such as we see on this example:

http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/ ... Itemid,96/

It has the same gently pointed bowl, cabled rim, and exactly the same shape of cheek pieces.

That is true, however the typical knob of virtually all montefortino types is missing, and judging from the helmets from the Guttman collection, there are no montefortinos which have the same attachment tubes for plumes. also, the ridged depiction of the helmet brow suggest some other helmet than a montefortino.
It could even be a Negau type with cheek plates...

You are only going by the Guttmann collection, which contains a small number of Montefortinos. Even if we examined all the Montefortinos which have been discovered and didn't find a single system of plume attachments like this one, it wouldn't prove that this isn't a Montefortino because we would still only be looking at a small percentage of all the Montefortinos that had ever existed. And no, the ridge doesn't suggest another helmet; it matches Montefortinos with cabled ridges exactly.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Sorry, I was meaning the one used as an example was an attic, not the one on the relief which you posted.!

[marcos]

this montefortino may be interesting. Sadly I don't know its find spot.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Wow, excellent! I've only seen the line drawing in th databast until this. Thanks!
I was wanting a reconstruction of this made, but not much success! D D

[Crispvs]

Thanks Marco.

I think that is as close as it gets to archaeologically attested proof of the image that Ruben posted the link to.

Crispvs

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Definetely! this helmet was to date unknown to me.

M.VIB.M.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

There is a drawing out there of it though.

[john m roberts]

That plume holder is massive. I wonder if there was a third holder in the center? It looks like there was something there which has deteriorated to a bump. I would be nice to know if it was Roman or Gallic, though.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

This is another photo, not sure why I was thinking it was a drawing.

I would imagin there was John, Iwas planning on doing interlinking plums to form a transverse crest.
I have several ideas in my head for it.

[Paullus Scipio]

If I recall correctly, there are a number of Montefortino helmets with this type of bracket for a 'triple' crest.....

[marcos]

here another interesting celtic helmet not far from a montefortino with a triple bracket.

URL=http://img26.imageshack.us/i/celtico.jpg/][/url]

[D B Campbell]

Besides the two or three Montefortinos that have crest brackets riveted to the bowl, Robinson illustrates an example (from Casaselvatica; now in Museo Nazionale di Antichita, Parma) with a peculiar "slide" fixture on either side of the bowl (Robinson 1975, p. 17 Plate 4). I wonder if anyone has an opinion on this?