Greek helmet crests:Question.

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Hello,all.
I hope I'm not revisiting a previous thread
but I couldn't find anything on this.
What were the general dimensions of a
crest box for a Corinthian helm?
Mine came with a crest attatched but
I think I can make a better one.
The cover of Connolly's "Greece and Rome
at War" shows a hoplite whose crest box
looks to be 2/3 of the total crest.
This may be one of those speculative
questions for which there is no definite answer.
I think no crests have survived and pottery may
hold the only "guess-timate".
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

p.s. I don't mean exact inches(cm)just generally.

[hoplite14gr]

Potery shows crest boxes from metal sometimes.
Rank and elíte unit status would influence the dimensions in my opinion.
We canot also ovelook personal taste and practicality.
Kind regards

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Many thanks,Stefanos.
I take it you're saying it's
fairly open to interpretation.

Would you think metal covered with
linen(to get the checkered pattern?
Or just paint the metal?

The one I have is leather covered wood-weighs a ton!

[hoplite14gr]

Phillip's tomp freskoes indicated that helmets could be painted.
Wooden crest boxes could definetly be painted.
If you had a metal crestbox ending as a nice griffin or a drakon (snake) you probaly wouldn´t like it covered.
Kind regards

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

I see what you mean.
a metal(brass?) crest box
could have an engraved or
embossed city/state emblem
as in the shield or decorative design,yes?

Thanks again,Stefanos.
This opens up quite a few
possibilities.

[Matthew Amt]

The crest I made for my own Corinthian was cut from a 2x6, so it's 1-1/2" thick by about 1-1/4" tall, and about a half-circle. The tricky part is making a pattern which fits the helmet nicely. There are Archaic helmets that have metal crest boxes attached, but the flush-mounted ones seen on most Classical Corinthians were probably usually wood since none survive (that I know of!). You could still cover a wood block with bronze, though.

You can see some crests on my site,

http://www.larp.com/hoplite/photos.html

Good luck, and Khaire,

Matthew

[hoplite14gr]

Matt´s post is valid.
I dont have a scanner so I posted 3 examples from books.
Iam no such agood artist as my friend nikos so be lenient.

example 1: black faced amphora "Thetis giving weapons to Achileus"
Acropolis museum

example 2: Red faced hydria National Meuseum Athens


example 3: fragment from Larissa museum

See attachment.
Regards

[hoplite14gr]

And a crest box from Cyprus 4rth century B.C.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hoplite14 ... 7a3re2.jpg

[Comerus Gallus]

There is also crest atached from a circular ring with a cross from its interior, this may be more simple than try to attach a wooden or metal crest to the skull.... or you can also attacht a simple pony tail wich I had seen in chalcidian, corinthian & thracian helmets, example:






BTW: Nice pictures Stefanos, I never seen those before

[Johnny Shumate]

Comerus,
Where do you get all those GREAT, WONDERFUL images of hoplites?!!!!!!!!
Johnny

[Comerus Gallus]

Some from books & some from internet!

Cleveland museum had some great exibitions, but they are remodeling the building so I have to wait until 2007 to 2012 :x

[Johnny Shumate]

Yoyu must know where the bodies are buried..! I haven't had much luck finding good pottery images on the net.....
Johnny

[Idomeneas]

and since we talk about crests. I heard and read that horse hair is difficult to dye thus crests had the natural horsehair color. Does this stands as rule? i mean there were no colored crests?

[hoplite14gr]

In in the surving aetoms of Delphi there are remains of red and black paint on the crests. So I think it was possible to dye them.
Kind regards

[Idomeneas]

In in the surving aetoms of Delphi there are remains of red and black paint on the crests. So I think it was possible to dye them.
Kind regards

i dont know. It might be an ''artistic permission'' thing, or even more to be possible for red to stay on hair close like to human hair. Did any of our kind reenactors here ever tried to dye a horse hair crest? Im really interested to know. I have noticed in ceramics that usually there is a ''striped'' patern which indicates to me that because of the lack of coloring ability they used parts of natural horse colors. This justifies in my mind a base for this theory but because its a rather practical matter i just wanna know if anyone experimented on it.