This is the only helmet we can actually say with any confidence is truly a "Viking" helmet, having been found in the right geographical region, and dating from the right period.
There are a good number of helmets found in Vendel and Valsgarde in Sweden, in particular, but they date from the 7th century, over a hundred years before the first recorded Viking raid. There are also many helmets dating from the 8th-11th century, but they have been found in regions where the Vikings were either not present, or if they were, they were only one of the races to which the helmets can be attributed.
I wrote to the Oldsaksamlingen Museum in Oslo, and they were very helpful indeed, to the point of sending me a set of "plans" for the helmet - showing exactly how it was constructed.
This is one of the very few "spectacle" helmets found from the Viking period (there is at least one other one in Russia). Like the Benty Grange helmet in England, it is constructed using a double framework. The plates are "sandwiched between an inner and an outer frame, with rivets linking the two which fix the plates in place without actually touching them. Only at the rim do rivets pass through the plates.
It was a very difficult helmet to make. The frame pieces were very narrow, and it was hard to fit the plates between them without leaving gaps. On completion, however, it was a very workable helmet. It sits down well on the head, giving better protection than most, and my fears that the spectacle attachment would interfere with my vision turned out to be unfounded. The shape was such that I could see almost as well as with a conventional "nasal" helmet. |
