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It is beginning to annoy me which period helmet it looks like!!
.But I think Mr Amt is right...looks Napoleonic to me too!
EDIT: Cuirassier...without the plume..
Moi Watson
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Quote:BTW, on the other side at the back of the helmet there is a curved rim or decoration that one can oftenly see at the front of such hellenistic helmets.
Such decoration on the back of the helmet existed in hellenistic helmets,so it isn't that strange. Especially since we can see that there was even more elaborate decoration in the front of the helmet.
Also,the cheek guard is folded more in one side and this makes it appear like the back looks at the front. If you hypothetically streightened it,it would shift leftwards,taking a more "normal" look.
Below a photo i took in the Amphipolis museum. It was out of the museum and there was no sign or inscription. It looks like 4th century b.c. to me. Note the helmet's cheek guards. I didn't take a better photo,but i remember clearly that they were bent outwards as if they were soft.
In the end,who can say that the whole helmet wasn't meant to be soft ??? I don't believe it,but we can't prove it either.
The whole matter resembles the musculata controversy,were they meant to b soft like they appear in sculpture? And how much artistic lisense in there in that?
Khairete
Giannis
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They did know what opium was...or at least the poppies! :wink:
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Wow! That is incredible.  hock:
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Ron Andrea
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Quote:It is beginning to annoy me which period helmet it looks like!!
.But I think Mr Amt is right...looks Napoleonic to me too!
EDIT: Cuirassier...without the plume..
Of course, the guy who designed the helmet may have used the sculpture as a model. Heh, heh.
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The existence of metal helmets with leather cheek pieces in the ancient world is attested by an entry in a Delian inventory list from the 2nd c. BC. It mentions
Quote:...????????????? ???????????????, ??? ?? ????????????? ??????? ????????, ??’ ??? ???????? ?????.
Or "...a silvered helmet, possessing leather cheek pieces, on which has been inscribed a prayer."
Ruben
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
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How does it come that you always have the answer :?: :!: That would have been laudes from me...
Khaire
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Quote:In "Greece and Rome at War" (p.132 of my 1998 Greenhill edition) Peter Connolly shows a figure from an Etruscan urn in the Volterra museum, wearing an Italo-Corinthian helmet with what appear to be broad leather or fabric tie-down straps. That may be what we're seeing here rather than a cheekplate.
I would agree with this - as far as we know, few if any Apulo/Italo/Etrusco- Corinthian helmets had cheek-pieces, and what is depicted on this example seems to be simply a 'broad' chinstrap....
Dan wrote:
Quote:This once again shows that D'Amato's book is good for the photos so long as you ignore the commentary.
"The sculpture very clearly shows the use of leather..."
It does no such thing. Leather is but one interpretation of that sculpture. Some of the explainations already suggested are far more likely IMO.
I would be interested to know if the other leather cheekguards that have been found have the same amount of flexibility as this one. Nobody has yet explained how thin, flexible leather can be treated so that it can actually stop a weapon attack. This would need to be done before any of this sculptural evidence can be interpreted as leather armour.
I would agree with Dan here - but as can be seen from the above a 'chinstrap', whether broad or narrow, or, as in the original example, shaped like a normal metallic cheek-piece need not be intended to be protective - an artifact shaped in imitation of another - here a 'soft' cheekpiece/chinstrap, one would not be unusual....so leather, probably; protective , not.
Mein Panzer wrote:
Quote:The existence of metal helmets with leather cheek pieces in the ancient world is attested by an entry in a Delian inventory list from the 2nd c. BC. It mentions
...????????????? ???????????????, ??? ?? ????????????? ??????? ????????, ??’ ??? ???????? ?????.
Or "...a silvered helmet, possessing leather cheek pieces, on which has been inscribed a prayer."
....and the same might apply here - we should perhaps be cautious about both translation of the word for 'cheekpieces' and even if the word is literal, it may well encompass 'broad' chinstraps such as the Etruscan urn example.......and leather 'cheekpiece/chinstraps' that are shaped like metal ones.
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Quote:....and the same might apply here - we should perhaps be cautious about both translation of the word for 'cheekpieces' and even if the word is literal, it may well encompass 'broad' chinstraps such as the Etruscan urn example.......and leather 'cheekpiece/chinstraps' that are shaped like metal ones.
Ruben's passage could simply be describing a rigid leather cheekguard. There are plenty of them from many periods and cultures but none of them are the flexible representations that D'Amato likes to pretend is leather armour. A wide chinstrap seems the most likely interpretation of the initial photo.
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Quote: A wide chinstrap seems the most likely interpretation of the initial photo.
Even so it would be a very long one! Considering the folded part and the helmet itself, I'd say that the piece under discussion could be 30 cm (or longer)? That's quite a bit for a cheek-guard, but even for a very wide chin strap.
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Hi Robert,
Perhaps we see not one of two leather cheek-guards but one single and long chin strap that is fastened on the other side of the helmet rim.
Greets - Uwe
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Or is the helmet sitting on a separate belt or strap of some sort? Grasping at straws, but it would help to see the other side. Still wouldn't be surprised if the whole statue base is Victorian...
Matthew
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It's even possible this "cheekguard", or whatever it may be, is not even part of the helmet. The little bit of folded fabric/leather directly next to the helmet could be the visible part of the broad chinstrap, and the thing adjacent to it might be something else. But I can't imagine what it would be in that case.  ?
Valete,
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The Portonaccio Sarcophagas is very intriging,
If you examine the plates very closely you can see that the legionary helmets appear to be placed on top of what could well be a leather cap with leather chin straps. Several plates appear to show the helmets at a slight angle on the head with the leather cap unmoved.
We know Late Roman infantry wore Phyrigian caps under their helmets, perhaps this is a similar thing at an earlier period?
Adrian Coombs-Hoar
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