Imperial Gallic H "Centurion" guise.

[Andrew]

Dear all,

Can anyone tell me if the Imperial Gallic H helmet shown ( worn in the later half of the first century - thx Jasper ) would have been worn by a 'Centurion' and featured a plume running front to back or side to side ?

and if so in what colour (red) ? I'd like to look into having this done but first would like to make sure that it's as accurate as possible.

Thanks for any help / details you can offer,

Andrew.

[Peroni]

The original helmet from Augsburg was fitted with crest supports front to back, but I see absolutely no reason why a centurion would not wear this helmet type.

http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/ ... Itemid,96/

It can certainly be adapted to hold a transverse crest simply by drilling a hole vertically through the brow guard rivets to accept a tie from each end of the crest box.

As for colour we simply do not know.

[Tarbicus]

...and if so in what colour (red) ? I'd like to look into having this done but first would like to make sure that it's as accurate as possible..

Brown, and made of moss hair grass:

link from old RAT

[Magnus]

Where is moss hair grass native to? I'm not sure I've seen anything like that here in my part of Canada.

[M. Demetrius]

I'm with you, Magnus. Our moss down here in Texas doesn't have hair, and doesn't usually grow where grass does.

[Tarbicus]

Okay, okay. Moss isn't grass, and me being one who doesn't believe it tastes good unless it had a face, I'm not too well up on unnatural things that grow in the ground.

It's been discussed before:
[url:1g7p9r8z]http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?p=76001#76001[/url]
(Roman 'merkin' as PP puts it)
[url:1g7p9r8z]http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?p=51966#51966[/url]
[url:1g7p9r8z]http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?p=49479#49479[/url]

I'm a bit of a fan of the idea of using vegetation, the ancients being very in tune with their agrarian aspects.

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

I beleive that hair moss mostly grows on trees. In Scotland you see a lot of beard moss. In vindolanda i also saw a hair net made from moss hair grass for protection against the midgets!

see this foto:

[Primvs Pavlvs]

I beleive that hair moss mostly grows on trees. In Scotland you see a lot of beard moss. In vindolanda i also saw a hair net made from moss hair grass for protection against the midgets!

see this foto:

hock: do they have combative little people there?

:wink: I think the word your looking for is midges

[Andrew]

Thanks for your help Guys, (had to leave the thread for a while)

Will look into having it done I think - will leave the moss out tho! :wink:

Best Regards Andrew.

[claudia crisis]

In vindolanda i also saw a hair net made from moss hair grass for protection against the midgets!

hock: do they have combative little people there?
:wink: I think the word your looking for is midges

No - think he was probably right the frist time - hence the person of diminished stature so carelessly discarded in the ditch at Newstead.

Imagine - Legions of mini Romans - gladius to the kneecaps (very nasty)!

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

i was referring to midges indeed - i always mix those 2 up...

[Caballo]

LOL! :lol:

On the Vindolanda "hair net" which was found in the Praetorium in period III (97-102 AD) when Coh VIIII Batavorum and the Tungrians were stationed there.
Rather than a hair net or an "unfinished basket", I suggest that this may be a helmet covering for one of the Batavian helmets.
Peronis has done some great work on the Gelduba helmet( http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/ ... Itemid,96/ ) which also had a "hairy" covering- again, with a Batavian provenance. The hair net/ helmet cover also has a striking resemblance to reconstruction of a cavalry facemask helmet (perhaps someone has this image to post).
The "helmet cover" would also protect against the Caledonian midgets (sorry, midges) very effectively.

Cheers

Caballo

[Peroni]

Caballo wrote..

The hair net/ helmet cover also has a striking resemblance to reconstruction of a cavalry facemask helmet (perhaps someone has this image to post).

Here's the Vindolanda hair moss cap..made from polytrichum commune strands (nothing like the beard moss!)
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/ ... olanda.jpg

http://www.helsinki.fi/~korpela/polytri ... mmune.html

Here's the reconstruction of the Nijmegen cavalry sports D..
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/ ... foort2.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/ ... nrecon.jpg


There are two other helmets of the same type that have this feature one more from Nijmegen and another from Xanten. All of these helmets are in the database. Look closely at the crown area of the hair/fur sections and you can actually make out the remains of a weave pattern very similar to the hair moss cap above that Caballo mentions

http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/ ... Itemid,96/
http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/ ... Itemid,96/
http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/ ... Itemid,96/

[Andrew]

These are fascinating Helmets they offer no protection to the head area - I guess because they would have been on horseback and blows would not have come from the top of the head. So the netting would have been there to keep the face mask in place.
When I see these Calvary masks I always find it hard to imagine that it would not have been a hinderance to the wearer and limit visabililty considerably during combat. Is this what they were designed for?

[Caballo]

Andrew wrote "So the netting would have been there to keep the face mask in place. " I think that the impact would have been more decorative and psychological for the adversary, and possibly from Batavian custom. Some animal skin wearing in other cultures comes from the quasi-shamanistic taking on the power if the animal- though no proof of this that I know of in Roman times.

As for face masks- worth doing a search on RAT for lots of threads on this.
Some say that a face mask would be no worse than a medieval helmet in battle (including me) , some that they were purely for parade and sports. You pays your money...

And I hope that Doha (where I lived in the mid 80s) is as sunny as ever!

Cheers

Caballo