Recreating a Greek Cavalryman

[John Conyard]

Good morning,
And thank you for your interest. I suspect the thickness of the bronze boeotian Greek helmet makes loosing it in battle a minor inconvenience. Although I say this partly in jest.

Giannis, just to fill you in I based my boeotian on the example from the Ashmolean. I went down there for some conferences and fell in love with it. Oswaldkirk is not so far from where I live so it seemed appropriate to have it reconstructed not only for me, but also for sale. We do not know when the holes were placed in the helmet so I did not have them placed in my versions. If the customer wants them in they can drill them themselves.

What holds the helmet on the head is the size of the orbital ridge in relation to the wearer’s head. The brass prototype fitted my head like a second skin and you could not rip it off without removing a large part of my scalp. The bronze version I had done for myself is a little larger for comfort. The helmets do come supplied with a leather liner glued inside. People seem to expect it. However I cover this with a thick felt pilos which is better for soaking up the sweat and cushioning any blow. I suspect if your helmet was made for you it would be a perfect fit. If it was issued to you a thick felt liner would be needed.

My helmet did not exactly fall off. I threw a long javelin into a shield where it stuck. Hal had never seen sharp javelins before, and certainly not one sticking out of a shield towards him. Coupled with the noise of the impact he gave a buck as we went past the target. This made my second javelin hit my helmet tipping it over my eyes. The noise sounded like a bell and the horse gave another buck. I used the second javelin to hit my helmet under the front rim to remove it from my head completely, which made more noise and the boeotian hit the horse as it fell off. This produced more excitement. I remember hanging on to the horses neck and hauling myself upright. Hal has no shoulders. Luckily the cameras were turned off. Afterwards Graham passed up my helmet but I was very tired and promptly dropped it as he handed it to me. Not exactly heroic but I like to think history is made up of such daft accidents.
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Yesterday Hal was treated to full colour targets and an afternoon of remedial sharp javelin practice. He has a tendency to run well at the first target but slightly turn away from the second. Sometimes. But he will get better. He already has a lot of experience of running at live targets throwing blunt javelins.

The Bulgarian boeotian helmet with small holes around the rear edge which Giannis refers to, is another version of the design with a beautiful shape. The rear edge covers the nape of the neck very well so I discount the idea it is for a mail aventail. It also makes my initial idea about a cloth sun shield, like a Havelock, unlikely. Instead I now suspect it is there to allow leather edging to be applied as with a late Roman helmet. The rear edge of a boeotian ridge can rub your shoulders and back, especially if not made for you. Leather edging would make it more comfortable to wear and reduce damage to clothing or skin. It would not be needed on the front of the helmet, and there are no holes in this corresponding position.

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