A strange silver mask from the Thorsberg bog

[Cornelius Quintus]

Avete omnes,

many thanks for the competent comments which show similarities to finds and sources I didn’t know before! (Laudes will follow one after another).

Mask and ‘hairnet’ seem to be single pieces without any hinges or joining parts, just found at the same location. There’s an old tradition to combine them. A 19th century painting by a Mr. Stephens featured a Germanic warrior equipped with a lot of finds from the Thorsberg bog.

…that it strongly resembles an Amazon sports helmet. However, the workmanship around the "face gap" looks good- and I wonder if it is a parallel of the Heddernheim helmet. If so the gap for the face was to improve visibility as an inherent part of the design rather than a barbarian sacrifice through cutting out the face, where good workmanship might be low on the agenda!

On my next visit, the mask will be in it’s usual display case (now being part of a special ‘gold and silver’ exhibition). I try to have a closer look on the face gap, then.

It looks like a "germanized" amazon/roman woman hairstyle on a parade mask like this:

[url:2ahyzhuy]http://www.romancoins.info/a-2005-helmet%20(6).JPG[/url]

Inspired by a hairstyle like this with a basketed bun:



To get room for a real hair, like in the Emesa facemask helmet...

Very similar hair style, indeed!

Looks like a Cavalry face mask that Daniele described, but with the face portion cruedly cut out. Perhaps it was captured and modified from the Romans......

Right, compared to the two other samples (links above) the cut-out looks crude, not lined or made to fit a missing ‘visor’.

This particular helmet was described in:

Garbsch, J., (1978), "Römische Paraderüstungen" p.72 , O.57 & Taf.25.4

However, it was not shown with the 'hair net' in this particular publication. While the helmet itself belongs to Robinson's "Cavalry Sports, Type F" the addition of the nair net appears to be a unique feature. There are at least five other helmets known that belong to this group, although with the exception of the one from Pfrondorf (Baden-Württemberg), found in 1868, none are as complete as this one.

Thanks for the source hint!
Mask and ‘hairnet’ seem to be single pieces without any hinges or joining parts, just found at the same location. There’s an ‘old tradition’ to combine them. A 19th century painting by a Mr. Stephens featured a Germanic warrior equipped with a lot of finds from the Thorsberg bog (detail from Stephen’s picture also showing two phalerae):

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m199 ... 867det.jpg

Trivia time:
A helmet based on this one was worn by Henry Wilcoxon in the film "The Warlord," in the first fight with Charlton Heston. the same helmet was worn again, as a gladiator helmet, in the "Created Equal" episode of the time-travel series "Voyagers!" in 1982. It showed up again in the first "Highlander" movie, worn by a guy in the background on the bridge at Eilean Donan castle.

Wow – I’ll check my Highlander DVD now!

It is not surprising that this particular helmet turned up in the movies as it was used in several turn of the 19th 20th century archaeological reconstruction paintings of early Germanic warriors. Hollywood does sometimes do accurate research.

In fact the 'hair net' is not unique. I have just done a reconstruction myself of someone wearing one of these helmets for my latest publication and one of the sources was an ancient fresco painting. All will be revealed soon.

Great! I’m already curious – please keep us informed when it will be available!

Just to add a little bit to my earlier post, this 'helmet' turned up in an exhibition staged in Copenhagen in 2003. The catalogue for this exhibition shows the helmet but without the 'hair net'. It does mention that the decoration on the helmet included gilding in places. Obviously an expensive item that was once owned by someone of consequence.

Ludwig Wamser (Die Römer zwischen Alpen und Nordmeer) also published single photographs of each of both finds. BTW: there is some exchange of finds between ‘our’ part of Northern Germany and Denmark, because this area changed ‘ownership’ some times during history. About 100 years there was a quarrel about the Thorsberg and Nydam bog finds, but now we are all Europeans, and even the famous Nydam ship was brought from Schleswig to Denmark for a year (and retuned now).