Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 61
RE-RESTORATION OF TWO ROMAN HELMETS Katalin T. Bruder HORSEMAN'S SPORTS HELMET The Greeks used this type in the antiquity at sporting events. They were depicted on the heads of Greek warriors on the relief of the Athena Polias Nikophoros temple in the territory of the Pergamun kingdom at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. Romans used it from the republican period to the end of the imperial period. Robinson gave the name and elaborated the typology of the composite helmet (close helmet and attached cheek flaps).1 According to his classification, the helmet was a horseman’s sports helmet of type G. It is preserved in the Hungarian National Museum. It is dated from the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd century.2’ 3 Inventory number: 54.6.68. THE OBIECT'S ARRIVAL IN THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM The helmet got into the Hungarian National Museum with the Delhaes collection in 1902. It had probably been found at the Iron Gate. The cheek flaps that used to belong to the close helmet have not been found. The helmet came as a part of a bequest that contained, among others, 700 choice pieces of armour. At present it is kept in the collection of armour and the archaeological collection of the Hungarian National Museum4 (fig. 1). Its depiction was published already in the memorial book titled The past and present of the Hungarian National Museum’ with fewer incompleteness than it shows to date.5 (fig. 2) PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY OF THE HELMET I have to contradict László Kocsis curator of the Roman collection on his views expressed in his candidate’s dissertation. He holds that the helmet was made with embossing technique. I think it was pressed. The clearest evidences of pressing can be seen on the eagle at the front of the crest, where typical longitudinal parallel traces of the tearing of the material can be seen, which are characteristically caused by pressing (fig. 3). The heads of the two snakes ornamenting the sides of the helmet and a short stretch of the bodies under the heads protrude in a sculptural form. It would have been difficult to make them with embossing without soldering. It seems more probable that they were pressed out later from the completed and ornamented 61
