Right cheek guards predominate findings - why?

[Cornelius Quintus]

Ave omnes,

listing known original helmets and fragments, I noticed that much more right cheek guards seem to be found. A total of 16 finds contains 10 right pieces, 3 left pieces and 3 pairs.

What’s the reason? Pure chance or does it indicate the direction of hits by two right handed men, facing each other in fight?

[arklore70]

I think your last part of the statement may have hit it on the head.

A predominance of right handed swingers as well as perhaps the position the legionary would be in, formation. If the scutum was to rest on the left shin, with the legionary crouched down, looking for an opportunity to thrust at his opponent, I think it would tend to more naturally expose the left side of the face.

Thoughts?

Mike

[ambrosius]

I think your last part of the statement may have hit it on the head.

A predominance of right handed swingers as well as perhaps the position the legionary would be in, formation. If the scutum was to rest on the left shin, with the legionary crouched down, looking for an opportunity to thrust at his opponent, I think it would tend to more naturally expose the left side of the face. Mike

I like the explanation, but maybe you meant to say 'the right side of the
face'? :wink: That would sure lead to more right cheek-guards being
hacked-off by the enemy and getting trampled into the mud to be dug
up 2,000 years later.

ambrosius

[Praefectusclassis]

Trouble is, some defy logic. This nice helmet from Nijmegen was found with a matching left and right cheekguard, that are obviously not missing from the helmet...

[Cornelius Quintus]

Trouble is, some defy logic. This nice helmet from Nijmegen was found with a matching left and right cheekguard, that are obviously not missing from the helmet...

Ave Jasper,

... but might prove the opponents 'faced' each other :lol:

[floofthegoof]

Never forget the power of randomness, especially for a small number of samples. I just flipped a coin 10 times here at my desk and got 9 heads! Really!

[claudia crisis]

Have you also considered non-combat damage?
When the owner puts down the helmet anywhere he is probably going to fold cheek pieces in. As a right handed person putting down the helmet, its point of contact will probably be the right hand side. Therefore this side will receive more stress than the other side & perhaps may be the first side to drop off.
Not all of the helmets found were lost on the demise of the owner in combat. Some are just plain lost into rivers ( "now where did I put my lid? oops! not again!").

Or as the previous said... just that bound to find one side more than another - just the luck of the draw which one.

Hilary

[rkmvca1]

listing known original helmets and fragments, I noticed that much more right cheek guards seem to be found. A total of 16 finds contains 10 right pieces, 3 left pieces and 3 pairs.

I'm going to interpret this as 13 rights and 6 lefts in a total population of 19. I'm not a professional statistician, buy my Z-statistic calculator with these proportions yields a Z-statistic of [1.50, implying a confidence level just over 85% that these are statistically different -- not strong. At least, you wouldn't want to go to court with it. ]

[However, if we had 38 total finds, and there were 26 rights and 12 lefts (which is the same proportion), then the Z-stat would be 2.13, for a confidence level of well over 95% that they are statistically different. You would probably be able to convince a jury.]

We need to go find more cheek pieces!

rkmvca/Rich Klein

EDIT: Please strike the statistical results in [brackets] above. I believe I defined the populations incorrectly. With the correct populations, I believe the z (or t) statistic is now about 2.25, indicating a very strong probability that there is a real difference in the predominance of left vs right cheek guards. I'll check with a real pro to make sure I have done the calculations correctly.

[Matt Lukes]

Ever notice how one week a clinical study says one thing and then the next week another study says the opposite? Statistics isn't exactly the ideal way to demonstrate anything it seems- at least I take anything demonstrated that way with a BLOCK of salt :lol: A population of 19 artifacts is UNBELIEVABLY TINY (too small a population seems to be the problem with a lot of studies), so I can't honestly see how any conclusions can be drawn from them- Z-statistic or not :wink: Especially since we have no idea whatsoever what the actual population of extant artifacts is- since we surely haven't found them all yet- so it's impossible to say whether or not the sample we have is representative.

I'm with Hilary- there are a million possible reasons for the dispartiy seen. And to be honest, combat issues seems to be a less-likely one to me. Only if entire HELMETS without left or right cheekguards were consistently found would I start to see the chance that one side or the other was consistently damaged and required repair, or if lone damaged left cheekguards were far more common would I start to think about right-handed opponents. For just lone intact cheekguards, my first question is where's the rest of the helmet? If not damaged, why would they be removed or why would only they survive and not the rest?

Certainly it's fun to speculate though


Matt

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Maybe the armorer made surplus parts to be interchanged when necessary and we just happened to find the stash. If the cheek guards were attatched as some we've seen they probably lost lots of both sides in the field.
Just a wacky observation.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

or maybe they losty the helmet, kept the cheek piece as a memory, and lost it again........

:roll:

M.VIB.M.

[Cornelius Quintus]

Ave omnes,
Your right, 19 findings are far from being representative, but speculation is fun.

For just lone intact cheekguards, my first question is where's the rest of the helmet? If not damaged, why would they be removed or why would only they survive and not the rest?

Perhaps the cheek guards were of less use for recycling than the bowls? A very interesting finding is at exposition in Krefeld/Germany, side by side with the supposed Krefeld Imperial italic ‘temple’ helmet ( http://www.archaeologie-krefeld.de/leis ... elduba.htm ).

Roughly translated from the German text:

‘Germanic iron helmet with traces of ornament made of leather, feathers and fur.
The Germanic owner, supposedly being a leader of the Batavian army, reworked an old Roman legionary helmet to suit his personal purposes. First, he stripped off cheek-, neck- and browguard. Then he filled the ear openings by forging, fitting out the helmet’s rim with leather trimming (mostly removed during restoration). At the front, impressions of four quills were found with traces of fur between them and also at the back/ridge. Attempting a reconstruction, supposedly an animal skin was glued on, perhaps of a weasel or marten, for sculptured metal top pieces of such animals plurally were found, dating from early medieval ages. For the early Roman period, barely a few Germanic helmets survived, leaving the Gellep-helmet a worthy enrichment of our knowledge.’

The ancient Germanic warrior seems to have liked the big eyebrows extending the helmet's appearance to an overall hairy look… :lol:

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Very interesting,Heiko,thanks.
I'd sure like to see that one!

[Peroni]

The ancient Germanic warrior seems to have liked the big eyebrows extending the helmet's appearance to an overall hairy look…

I made my own reconstruction of this helmet. It's on this thread...
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... 2121#72121

and a close-up of the original helmet bowl... (photo supplied to me by Jasper)

[Cornelius Quintus]

I made my own reconstruction of this helmet. It's on this thread...
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic. ... 2121#72121

Ave Adrian,

great reconstruction! You even did choose the right type of feathers, I think.

Have you already sent a photo of your helmet to the Krefeld museum?