http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ancient-Artifact-Iron-Spangenhelm-Helmet-Gothic-Migration-Period-RT-251-/330884376029?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d0a3ee5dd
This is described as. Goth helmet . The area of find is given as a ravine to the NE of Italy.
It is very like two helmets in the Kunstshistorisches Museum Vienna. I believe that these came from a similar N Balkan context. Frankly they could be any time from 400 to 1100 AD and do look rather like the helmets worn by soldiers in a ninth/tenth century Bible illustration.
Nothing about the context of the find gives it a date, it is a rather crude piece as are the Vienna helmets and there is no decoration to give a contextual date.
Roy
Compare:
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/illustration/jockey-cap-helmets-from-sveti-vid-dalmatia-hun-stock-graphic/142456282 (http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/illustration/jockey-cap-helmets-from-sveti-vid-dalmatia-hun-stock-graphic/142456282) (the Sveti Vid helmets in Vienna)
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/1299339 (http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/1299339)
http://royalathena.com/PAGES/MigrationMedievalCatalog/HMS25.html (http://royalathena.com/PAGES/MigrationMedievalCatalog/HMS25.html)
There may be more of these around than I had realised.
Knew it would get a Duncan reply:-)).
How near is Sveti Vid to a ravine near NE Italy I wonder.
These do have a sort of munition look to them don't they, simple cheap construction using the wide central band to to distribute any blow rather than the more vulnerable join of say an intercisa helmet.
They do look as though they could also be related to the rounded classicised helmets on the chair of Bishop Maximian, but on the whole I suspect we would both go for a later date.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 11, 2013, 12:53:43 PM
How near is Sveti Vid to a ravine near NE Italy I wonder.
"Sveti Vid is a small village in hills northeast of Begunje in the Municipality of Cerknica in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia" - so, not very far at all.
And on the Carolingian and later Ottonian frontier. Which might be suggestive.
The helmets in Vienna seem to have been used to set the dates for the others. However, I recall that they were found in the Late 19th or early 20th century and don't seem to be associated with any firm dating.
If they are 4th century just how do they fit with anything else (not that they absolutely have to, but lots of finds do fit in a stylistic line with other helmets.
The contra to that would be those wired helmets from the Netherlands that are covered in spikes and look like something from a Conan story.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 11, 2013, 02:32:27 PM
And on the Carolingian and later Ottonian frontier. Which might be suggestive.
Something to do with the apparently two-piece Carolingian manuscript helmets, are you thinking?
QuoteThe helmets in Vienna seem to have been used to set the dates for the others. However, I recall that they were found in the Late 19th or early 20th century and don't seem to be associated with any firm dating.
I think I have seen the Vienna ones with a range of suggested dates; I agree that I don't think they can be dated very reliably. But I do share your earlier suspicion that they resemble helmets on Byzantine maybe-6th-century ivory - not (IIRC) the throne of Maximian (does that have helmets?) but that ivory with a couple of armoured infantry and an armoured horse-archer, which I think is in a museum in Germany somewhere - was that the one you were thinking of?
Quote from: Duncan Head on March 11, 2013, 02:49:18 PM
Quote from: aligern on March 11, 2013, 02:32:27 PM
And on the Carolingian and later Ottonian frontier. Which might be suggestive.
Something to do with the apparently two-piece Carolingian manuscript helmets, are you thinking?
Reminiscent too of the Aachen situla, which is dated around 1000. So, an apparently long lived style. Incidentally, I found this site (in Czech?) which has a nice collection of Carolingian and other helmets to compare too
http://frankove.livinghistory.cz/vystroj.htm
In terms of an early date, is the absence of cheek pieces a problem? It doesn't look like it had any attached.
Also, while checking Duncan links, I noticed this alleged Viking helmet
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/16017042_viking-iron-bremen-style-helmet
The description is of a spangenhelm, with cheek pieces, but again with the low domed profile typical of some Carolingian helmets. Given th vague provenance, I would be wary of the Viking attribution (do so-called Viking helmets fetch more?) but interesting if the dating is right.
The "Viking" helmet has its skull made up of four triangular plates like a spangenhelm, but with two bands crossing over each other rather than four or more spangen meeting at the apex, so it's not a spangenhelm by the strictest definition (http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3257384.pdf.bannered.pdf (http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3257384.pdf.bannered.pdf)).
** Sorry, that link should have been http://www.xlegio.ru/pdfs/sasanian_chieftains_helmet.pdf (http://www.xlegio.ru/pdfs/sasanian_chieftains_helmet.pdf) - that's the Grancsay article that discusses the difference in structure between spangenhelme and the crossing-band style. But the first article is valuable as well so I'll leave both links in! :)
It does look similar in general outline to the St Vid type, though the resemblance would be less striking if one of the two had cheekpieces.
The "Bremen" helmet referred to is probably the one illustrated in https://sites.google.com/site/archoevidence/home/helmets (https://sites.google.com/site/archoevidence/home/helmets), which is one of the spike-covered ones Roy mentions, and which looks from the photo as if it is a genuine spangenhelm.
I love that Czech article!
Must say that I increasingly disbelieve in the Carolingian helmet that is portrayed as a sort of morion.
I believe that the ones from Doura Europus probably show a Roman helmet with a pointed moveable peak. The parallel of the Carolingian versions with others that show a helmet with two half bowls, a fore and aft ridge and often a button at the front is just so strong. One can see that in some of the depictions of those helmets the classicising tendency is flaring out the brim and putting a Roman style, forward curving crest on the top.
There are helmets on the Maximian chair, they are, as you say Duncan similar in genre to the depiction of an aristocrat and his bukellarii that represents a classicised depiction of a rounded helmet with cheek pieces.
We have a surprising number of spangenhelmen and other Dark Age helmets and I'd suggest that we have enough to say that something shown in art only and in art that does not look flatly realistic is dubious .
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 11, 2013, 06:32:09 PMThere are helmets on the Maximian chair, they are, as you say Duncan similar in genre to the depiction of an aristocrat and his bukellarii that represents a classicised depiction of a rounded helmet with cheek pieces.
Ah, I see (and remember) now - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3324790061/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3324790061/)
On the "bucellarii" ivory (which is at the Czech http://frankove.livinghistory.cz/vystroj.htm (http://frankove.livinghistory.cz/vystroj.htm) site about halfway down, if anyone doesn't know what we are talking about) what reminds me of the St Vid helmets is :
- The skull shape, bulbous and almost slightly flattened at the top,
- The fact that what looks at the front like a pseudo-Attic brow decoration actually continues all round the helmet as a broad rim, like the base-ring of the St Vid helmets.
Despite the cheekpieces, I can quite easily see these helmets as classicizations of the Sveti Vid type, so I would guess that a 6th century date for the latter may not be far off. The Maximian throne helmets don't look quite so SvetiVid-esque to me.
Interswtingly the two qualifiers that are given in terms of bulbosity and continuance of the brim fit the Maximian helmets just about as well!! They are a little more classical, but then the ivory plaque has a plume on one doesn't it?
Roy
Quote from: Erpingham on March 11, 2013, 03:47:19 PM
Also, while checking Duncan links, I noticed this alleged Viking helmet
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/16017042_viking-iron-bremen-style-helmet (http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/16017042_viking-iron-bremen-style-helmet)
I've just noticed that this "Viking" helmet is constructed in the same way as the Anglo-Saxon Shorwell helmet (http://tinyurl.com/c3dp6vt (http://tinyurl.com/c3dp6vt)) - browband, two crossover bands, four sub-triangular skull segments. The two look quite similar, in fact, though one difference is that the bands on the Shorwell helmet flare out at the base, like the
spangen on the contemporary 6th-century Baldenheim spangenhelm group, whereas the "Viking" helmet's crossbands are straight, which would fit the suggested later date.
The helmet looks very similar to one that was recently discovered that may have been used as a funerary Urn, I cannot remember where I read or saw this though BBC? RAT?).
Two problems with this Helmet are, are the archeological organisations where it was found alerted to the find, and also, is it genuine or a fake as many such items on Ebay turn out to be fakes.
There are starting to be enough of these helmets for them to be a widespread type or at least sub type of spangenhelm. What is particularly good is that they are such un fussy construction as to be a valid mass produced munition helmet for ordinary chaps. Generally Baldenheim style helmets are very beautifully decorated which argues for them being elite items whereas these do not look elite at all . Baldenheims would be difficult to mass produce whereas the Ebay, kunstshistorisches museum and Shorwell helmets all look very suitable for manufacture.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 27, 2013, 08:41:16 PM
There are starting to be enough of these helmets for them to be a widespread type or at least sub type of spangenhelm.
Of course while they have a similar general appearance, low and plain and with any cheekpieces lost, structurally there are at least two types: Sveti Vid is a "bandhelm", two half-skulls with a single fore-and-aft band joining them, but Shorwell has four skull segments, the fore-and-aft band and two halves of a lateral band. Both styles are closer to Sasanian-Roman ridge helmets than to "true" spangenhelme, though their plainness rather detracts visually from that.
The "Viking" helmet could either be the same as Shorwell or could be a third structural type with two complete bands crossing each other.
Today, the latest issue of Medieval Warfare magazine (III/3) arrived. The theme is the rise of the Seljuqs and decline of the Byzantines, and the cover illustration is a painting of a couple of Byzantine soldiers of the 1070s. What I didn't notice from the painting itself, until I read the accompanying article and saw a photo, was that one of the guardsmen is wearing a helmet of the same type we have been discussing. The photograph shows the source, an iron helmet from the Haluk Perk museum in Istanbul, which is dated (according to Raffaele D'Amato - he does not say explicitly if this is the museum's dating) to the eleventh century. And it's virtually identical to the eBay helmet that started this thread off, or the Sveti Vid helmets. Dr D'Amato says this "shows that the tradition of the banded and segmented helmet of Late Roman times was still strong in Byzantium", but I wonder if it just shows a doubtful dating: the resemblance seems too close to be down to a continuance in style five centuries later.
(The helmet on p29, from the same museum, is a rather interesting piece as well!)
I find it interesting that he has chosen to represent it as having quilted cheekguards of "feather and leather". When I looked at the other examples, it wasn't clear whether they had had cheekpieces or not. He has clearly gone for an intermediate view of a perishable material, rather than metal. Also he shows the helmet (which is iron) with a yellow metal colouring - I wonder what he intends by that as it isn't referenced in the commentary?
I'd assumed gilding, since he's supposed to be a guardsman; but as you say, not mentioned.
Raffiaele does take a very literalist interpretation of source illustrations. This can be both challenging and illuminating. In this case I would expect to see a source somewhere. The helmet itself is so basic that it makes a typological approach a bit difficult.
On another of Raffaele's reconstructions, I was fascinated by his recreation of the Adamklissi metopes Roman gear. I had always rather assumed that the legionaries are wearing standard helmets with deep neck guards and cross reinforcing pieces. He shows them as much more like the Syrian helmets that auxiliary archers wear on Trajan's column with cloth backed scale neck coverings. most interesting.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on June 18, 2013, 09:09:45 PMThe helmet itself is so basic that it makes a typological approach a bit difficult.
It is pretty basic, but the resemblance not just in basic construction but in proportions - skull shape, depth of the browband, etc - is so similar between the Haluk Perk example and the supposedly earlier ones that I was very surprised by the presumed chronology.
so you are telling me that I can simply take some rusted piece of iron from my garden, give it a helm look, and sell it on eBay for 6500 dollars? interesting. How do you know it is not counterfeited?
The challenging part is to 'give it a helm look', which would require shaping and quite possibly reforging in a smith's furnace. Metallurgical testing and analysis also help to separate genuine ancient metalwork from modern hopefuls who use mass-production steels. This need not be complicated or expensive: a few metal shavings and a few vials of different acids tell one all one needs to know.
More expensively, grinding the metal flat and polishing it allows it to be etched for the purposes of metallography, which reveals the molecular structure. If one does not wish to damage the item in any way, crystallography can be used to determine the metal's composition and structure, but the price tag of this method is beyond the means of the casual collector.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 27, 2014, 12:33:23 PM
The challenging part is to 'give it a helm look', which would require shaping and quite possibly reforging in a smith's furnace. Metallurgical testing and analysis also help to separate genuine ancient metalwork from modern hopefuls who use mass-production steels. This need not be complicated or expensive: a few metal shavings and a few vials of different acids tell one all one needs to know.
More expensively, grinding the metal flat and polishing it allows it to be etched for the purposes of metallography, which reveals the molecular structure. If one does not wish to damage the item in any way, crystallography can be used to determine the metal's composition and structure, but the price tag of this method is beyond the means of the casual collector.
how can you do this if you buy on eBay? once you paid, you get whatever the seller will give to you.
Quote from: andrew881runner on August 27, 2014, 12:57:10 PM
how can you do this if you buy on eBay? once you paid, you get whatever the seller will give to you.
True, but you would have the protection e-bay gives against fraudulent selling. Given the trade in illegal antiquities, I'd be very wary of making such a purchase, even if genuine (not that I have the money).
Quote from: Erpingham on August 27, 2014, 02:03:36 PM
Quote from: andrew881runner on August 27, 2014, 12:57:10 PM
how can you do this if you buy on eBay? once you paid, you get whatever the seller will give to you.
True, but you would have the protection e-bay gives against fraudulent selling. Given the trade in illegal antiquities, I'd be very wary of making such a purchase, even if genuine (not that I have the money).
for my experience, eBay protection does not exist, simply if you pay by PayPal you can ask a chargeback (maybe fraudulent).