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11-11-2003, 10:25 PM

I was looking through the Armamentarium museums.ncl.ac.uk/archive...elmets.htm section on helmets (listing all the helmets found) and was suprised. 
 
Of a total of 292 helmets, 44% (12 were classed as cavalry sports helmets. Of these a further 44% were found in Germany, often in significant clumps of more than 3 e.g. at 8 at Carnuntum (Bad Deutsch-Petronell & Altenberg). 
 
All the helmets found in Iberia were Montefortino (47 intotal), which was the bulk of the Montefortino finds. 
 
Only 5% ofthe helmets found were in Italy, compared to 34% in Grmany. In fact, the UK has produced as many Roman helmets (16) as Italy, compared to Germany's 98. 
 
This raises a number of questions in my mind (assuming the Armamentarium to be correct). 
 
a/ Why so many Cavalry Sports helmets? 
-Possibly they were not used in battle, so they were stored, and presumably forgotten/ seen as lower priority when forts etc were abandoned 
-Possibly they preserve better (unlikely) 
-Or were they much more widespread in use beyond the sports arena, and used in battle? Certainly, the Kalkriese facemask was in battle, and ranks of steel masked horsemen might well terrify many a barbarian into running before impact. 
 
b/ Why so many Montefortino helmets in Iberia? 
-Leftovers from Republican fights with Hannibal? 
-Regional helmet differences eg Spanish legions keeping the Montefortino? 
-Something about the Spanish and Portuguese soil- unlikely 
 
c/ Why so many helmets in Germany? 
-Stores abandoned and over-run leaving valuable/lower priority equipment behind? 
- Barbarians didn't value them (poor field of vision) and so left them where they were? 
 
Any other ideas?? 
 
Regards,. 
 
Paul

11-11-2003, 10:39 PM

Sorry , "44% (12 were classed as cavalry sports helmets)" should read (128 were classed as cavalry sports helmets) 
 
Paul

Goffredo · 11-12-2003, 07:44 AM

I am guessing. 
 
Helmet finds correlate with: 
(1) duration of military activity (permanent or semi-permanent bases over hundreds of years versus intense but relatively brief military presence); 
(2) passage of time (older stuff has higher chance of being lost: rusting away, farmers working fields and battle fields being eroded). 
 
So in Germany, at the LIMES, one expects many finds. 
Why many survived can be explained by backwardness of Germany (well up until Charlemagne's conquests) with no systematic farming and forest cutting and roman outposts or communities were most frequently not occupied and converted into towns and cities but simply ignored. 
In Iberia I would expect lesser finds and from earlier periods. Italy even less finds so as it was romanized before Iberia. The military presence in Italy over many centuries of roman history was quite limited and then easily destroyed by high density of humans and their activity (farming, recycling metals,....). 
 
Regards cavalry helmets we first have to be sure they are correctly classified, then might understand presence of cavalry in terms of performance needed to ensure an adequate control of LIMES: best performed with fast moving troops. But cavalry needs very good logistics (breeding, feeding,...) and logistics is something the romans were very good at. Again I am guessing. 
 
Any other ideas?

LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS · 11-12-2003, 07:46 AM

SALVE 
 
Well, you must to think there is a lot of material unpublished. 
 
The high proportion of Montefortino at Iberia is logical, is the helmet of the Punic Wars, and of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompeius. 
 
Respect the cavalry sports helmets... Probably we must to change the name to faced helmets or so: 
 
-Sure are'nt only for cavalry: think the representations of standarbearers. 
 
-Probably not only for sports. 
 
Vale

11-12-2003, 12:10 PM

The high proportion of "cavalry-sport" helmets found may have to do with the fact that they were generally made of bronze which contrary to iron, does not rusts away, and were often decorated with silver and gold, which do not rust either. 
IMHO, some of those "cavalry-sport" were used in combat and others at the hippika gymnasia. What is certain is that we cannot classify all these headpieces either as "cavalry-sport" or just "masked helmet", there are clearly different types. 
As usual you can find very luxurious pieces along more roughly made ones.

11-12-2003, 03:34 PM

There was a huge amount of fighting and military presence in Iberia during the mid-late Republic, and not much after that. Besides the fights already mentioned, there was the rebellion of Sertorius and the long, hard subjugation of the Iberian peninsula, which featured few big battles but many ambushes, skirmishes and small-scale massacres. This was all during the heyday of the montefortino, and even the cavalry probably wore them. By the end of the Republic, Spain was so thoroughly subjugated that it required little military presence and the "Spanish" legions were used elsewhere (think IX Hispana in Britannia.) So, just as the changeover to the Gallic/Italic helmets was taking place, the legions were leaving Spain. As for the one that stayed (VI Victrix), maybe they did retain the montefortino. In the absence of significant action, there would have been little impetus to upgrade the gear.

mcbishop · 11-12-2003, 09:12 PM

Sure are'nt only for cavalry: think the representations of standarbearers 
 
There is no unequivocal evidence that standard bearers used masked helmets - the whole notion is based on two rather incompetent tombstones (those of Faustus and Secundus) from Mainz, one of which is clearly a copy of the other (they differ in the number of disks on the standard): 
 
www.romanarmy.com/Content...stusd2.jpg 
www.romanarmy.com/Content...ndusd3.jpg 
 
The 'thing' hovering over the shoulder of Faustus may be many things... but incontrovertible proof that standard bearers wore masked helmets it is not. Compare it with the equivalent thing/helmet over Secundus' shoulder, which is very difficult to interpret as a face mask. 
 
This is, sadly, an example of a factoid which started out as a not unreasonable hypothesis that has gradually gained acceptance by repetition without the evidence base increasing. The presence of face masks at Kalkriese (or anywhere else, come to that) adds nothing to the theory as there are 101 alternative possible interpretations of those artefacts being present in the archaeological record. 
 
Mike Bishop

11-13-2003, 07:08 PM

"IMHO, some of those "cavalry-sport" were used in combat and others at the hippika gymnasia. What is certain is that we cannot classify all these headpieces either as "cavalry-sport" or just "masked helmet", there are clearly different types." I completely agree- and the argument that vision is impaired doesn't work IMHO. Compared to the Sutton Hoo helmet or a medieval full helmet, vision would be about the same. 
 
Paul

drsrob · 11-17-2003, 01:21 AM

And a not inconsiderable number of these cavalry sports helmets do not even have face masks. These in my opinion are always normal battle helmets. As were the face mask helmets of the first century AD. In the time of Arrianus the latter were clearly exclusively used for cavalry sports. Greetings 
 
Rob Wolters

01-20-2004, 10:49 PM

"There is no unequivocal evidence that standard bearers used masked helmets - the whole notion is based on two rather incompetent tombstones (those of Faustus and Secundus) from Mainz, one of which is clearly a copy of the other (they differ in the number of disks on the standard): 
 
www.romanarmy.com/Content...stusd2.jpg 
www.romanarmy.com/Content...ndusd3.jpg " 
 
Taking my life in my hands, but what of the two standard bearers from the Adamklissi tropaeum illustrated on page 35 of Graham Sumner's Roman Empire: Wars of Empire (if some one can tell me how to post illustrations , I'll post this). 
The standard bearers are either bare-headed with a swept back "pompadour" hair-style (both unusual if not unique) or are wearing a masked helmet (AG449 Silistra) similar to that shown on page 84 of JRMES vol 10 1999, described as "iron mask helmet...tinned brass...the coiffure with its almost baroque welath of curls most probably was heat treated to achieve a colour-contrats of blackish hair and silvered face". 
 
Regards, 
 
Paul

Gregg · 01-22-2004, 07:14 PM

I remember reading, I think in Bishop/Coulston, that some cavalry helmets with masks were shown to have thinner bowls than cavalry helmets without masks, which suggests they were intended for training exercises and not combat. 
 
Not that helmets with face masks couldn't be used in combat. The Pergamum relief shows just such a helmet, probably for a Greek cataphract. The Kushan sculpture at Khalchayan shows a cataphract thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s probably wearing a helmet with a mask (either that or he has the mumps), and some written sources refer to heavy armored horsemen wearing full face masks. Quite a number of face masks dated to the 12th Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 14th centuries have been found in and around the Russian steppe, and a couple were found at Constantinople. 
 
However, in most or probably all of these cases, the face masks were associated with cavalry, and not infantry. Even the examples from Constantinople were found with bits of horse harness. I would tend to doubt that helmets with full face masks of this type were ever worn by infantry. Roman Imperial infantry helmets were very well designed to offer the best possible protection for the face and head without sacrificing the wearers hearing, vision or breathing, while a helmet with a face mask would impede all three. The idea that a standard bearer (of all people) would be allowed to equip himself with armor that impeded his view of a battle, and decreased his ability to hear and convey orders, doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t seem quite right to me. 
 
Gregg

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