The Hallaton helmet

[Cunicula]

Having seen many of the photos, the silver which is mentioned in the articles constantly eludes me.. I see rust, and a lot of it...

I had the same thoughts!

I'm sad that you seem to have little faith in conservators, (makes note to communicate better) and in modern analytical techniques. This was done in the BM metals department; they have access to the finest of these.

On an x-ray, it is usually very clear where there are different metals, since these corrode at different rates in the ground when they are in contact - the less noble corrodes before the more noble metal. Even very thin tinning is evident on a good x-ray, even if you can't see it at the time and one of the first things they would have done would have been to x-ray all the fragments. I imagine that you can't see the silver on the conserved helmet because it is corroded and no longer shiny - conservators don't clean metals down to the metallic surface, but to the original surface, if it is still discernable, which is often on longer metallic, but often preserves a great deal of detail. With silver, the silver of the original surface may well have been replaced by silver sulphide, which is black, or near-black, and quite rightly, the conservators have left that in place (if you strip corroded artefacts with battery acid/ brown sauce/ 'my secret mixture in a little bottle' beloved of some metal detectorists, you end up with a nice twinkly sponge which tells you nothing!)

To confirm which metal has been used for the coating, they will either have used a Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy in conjunction with a scanning electron microscope or x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, or both, to identify the silver and any other metals involved.

I would like to know if after ten years of what might be considered a good piece of restoration, has any archaeologist or conservator come up yet with a complete write up or paper on this helmet and so many cheek plates for we appear to be getting this story just a little bit at a time.

They've only just finished it! They couldn't really write it up until the process was complete - I expect their report on the conservation will be published as part of the overall publication of the find, which is usually how these things work. Market Harborough museum has an exhibition on this very subject, if you're able to get there

Revealing the Hallaton Helmet
Saturday 28th January - Saturday 7th July Usual opening times

An exhibition celebrating the discovery and conservation of this internationally significant Roman cavalry helmet featuring items from the British Museum's conservation lab where it was painstakingly pieced back together

PS it was conservation, not restoration. There's an important difference