Greek Helmet Crests

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Something like that I imagine,but it is strange I haven't seen anything like that in a sculpture of any period...
This is a possible structure...

khaire
Giannis

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Hello Gioi!Wellcome back again!This is a really nice corinthian!And unusual crest attachments for a corinthian...
The larger image does not work,by the way.
Khaire
Giannis

[Paullus Scipio]

...and back with a bang, I see !! :lol: :lol:

That's a rare treat, to see a Corinthian with any kind of helmet crest fittings, but the fittings themselves are unusual too !

Deserves a laudes for this find...... D

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Welcome back Gioi!
Another few minutes and i would have missed your grande entrance!! :lol:

Nice helmet too!

[Paullus Scipio]

...great photos, Gioi !!......but the more I look...something's bothering me..the helmet seems to be intact and not mis-shapen in any way, and those crest tie-loops are just not like anything else I've seen. Could the helmet have been 'restored', and as part of the restoration had the loops added? ( evil:

What does everyone else think?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Nah,I don't believe so.Restauration is possible,but I don't believe they added anything out of their mind.If the lop was missing,the only visible thing would be two wholes!And restauration,as far as I know,can be done only in some missing parts,not re-shaping it.But I'm not sure.It seems every manufacturer had dia own way to attach crests.Here are some similar examples.The crest box would be tied to the front and back with a string.



Gioi,do you have a third photo of the helmet?I can see only two in your flickr account...
Khairete
Giannis

[Paullus Scipio]

Great photos Giannis !!

Seems some attachment points can be quite crude after all ! :o

Just goes to show the need for a Greek section Helmet typology......speaking of which, I PM'd Jasper a while back, but so far he hasn't got back to me.......no doubt he is rather busy'catching up' after his vacation.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

And I was about to ask you about that,Paul.
Credit for the first of those two photos goes to,I think,Dan Diffendale.I think I took it from his site.
As for crest attachments typologies...I think this would require a separate section from the Greek Helmet typology :lol:
Khaire
Giannis

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

Nah,I don't believe so.Restauration is possible,but I don't believe they added anything out of their mind.If the lop was missing,the only visible thing would be two wholes!And restauration,as far as I know,can be done only in some missing parts,not re-shaping it.But I'm not sure.It seems every manufacturer had dia own way to attach crests.
Giannis

Reference the bottom photo. That is helmet H1 as described in Herbert Hoffmann's Early Cretan Armorers, 1975. The loops were intact as excavated at Afrati. Almost identical loops exist on a similar helmet from Axos. The loops helped hold the two halves together. Another Afrati helmet, H3, had three tubular crest attachments, at the forehead, the apex, and the nape of the neck, the last two noted attachment tubes survived intact. These helmets date around 640 to 625. Crest attachments may have both a regional and temporal component to them.

Hoffmann is an extremely detailed source, but hard to find, and expensive, costing me $150 bucks. Most Cretan helmets were embossed, which added to the strength of the relatively thin bronze (.5 - 1.5 mm). Making them in two halves actually made the embossing possible to begin with. The structural strength was supplemented by the brow plate. Clever, these Cretans, although Snodgrass attributes the metallurgy to Cyprus. Hoffmann notes the antecedent techniques to the Danube area and the Near East, but describes the technique as a Cretan innovation.

Ralph Izard
[size=75:3983je1q]with loops more or less intact[/size]

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

The loops helped hold the two halves together.

But are also crest attachments,right?Otherwise they wouldn't have to extend outwards and just rivets would do the job.
Also it's interesting that similar loops existed on the top of the helmet as well as on the front and back.This would mean that the loop actually went inside the crest box.But I suppose the frontal and back loops worked by tying the crest with strings,like the hooks in the illyrian and other helmets.
Khaire
Giannis

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

But are also crest attachments,right?Otherwise they wouldn't have to extend outwards and just rivets would do the job.
Giannis

Yup.

The Mykonos Pithos which dates to circa 650 depicts fore-and-aft crests which would fit the Cretan helmets. The Mykonos Pithos also depicts the "Omphalos" shield which is smaller than the "aspis" type shield, implying the phalanx was not yet in use, at least in the Cycladic region. Maybe.

Ralph

[hoplite14gr]

Well come back Ralf.

The Phallanx was a slow evolution and many islanders and mountaneers never quite adopted it.

Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

I've posted Jasper's response to the idea of a new Greek database as a new topic, guys !

[Comerus Gallus]

...great photos, Gioi !!......but the more I look...something's bothering me..the helmet seems to be intact and not mis-shapen in any way, and those crest tie-loops are just not like anything else I've seen. Could the helmet have been 'restored', and as part of the restoration had the loops added? ( evil:

What does everyone else think?

You can inspect this huge resolution.. its very clear... Let me know :wink:

large-- http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id ... 229&size=l

Original/huge - http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id ... 229&size=o

[Paullus Scipio]

Great blow-ups Gioi...how did you do that?

Certainly there is nothing obviously fake to my amateur eye - the patina is uniform etc...it looks O.K. as far as one can tell from a couple of photos.....a unique example then.....

Anybody else have an opinion??