In this blog article I will present a group of Etruscan made Chalcidian type helmets that have fully face covering cheek guards. This style is to my knowledge represented by only two examples.
The more famous one is a helmet from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Italo-Chalcidian helmet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Helmet of Italo-Chalcidian type. Found together with an anatomical cuirass and a left greave. Etruscan made, probably from Vulci. The helmet was acquired in the MET in 2017. It was found at least before 1972, after which its journey can be traced through various private collections.
Dating:
This helmet is dated to late 5th–4th century BCE by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This corresponds with the Classical Period in Greek chronology. The helmet belongs to the sub-type V of Chalcidian type helmets. Not including decoration, there was recently a helmet of exactly the same shape in Phoenix Ancient Art gallery, but it is not on their website anymore (perhaps sold away). That helmet was dated to the 4th century BCE.
Description:
The helmet is made of bronze. The skull part was cast near the finished shape, and finalized by hammering. The skull is not perfectly hemispherical, but forms almost a ridge running from front to back. Some helmets of this same type have an actual angled ridge at their skull. The neck guard is somewhat concave, to countour the neck of the person wearing the helmet. Earholes are cut to the sides of the helmet, like in all Chalcidian helmets. The edge around the earholes and neck guard is perforated with a series of small holes, for sewing in helmet liner, and possibly edge liner as well.
Carinated ridge goes around the helmet separating the skull part from the rest. The ridge raises up to an apex at the forehead. The ridge is decorated with a possibly silver wire running around the whole of its perimeter. This same decorative element can be found in the more famous Etruscan Chalcidian type helmet from Todi (in the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome). At the front of the helmet, under the ridge there is a band of tongues, and under that a band of hair locks incised to the helmet.
The forehead is also decorated with separately cast gorgoneion applique. On top of the helmet are two tubes meant for feathers, and between them is a space for a longitudinal horsehair crest, and two crest box supporters (one broken) in the form of Pegasi. On the sides of the helmet, above and in front of earholes are two loops holding bronze rings. Their purpose is not known, but they could also be related to crest attachments. The rings show wear marks of something that has been attached to them, possibly cords. There is another cast applique in the form of a horse's head on the back of the helmet, just below the ridge. This forms a hook which is surely ment to hold a loop connected to the back of the crest box of a longitudinal helmet crest.
The eyeholes are almond-shaped. Nasal is narrow but thickly cast (by looking at pictures, about 1 cm thick). Only the left cheek guards exists now. The cheek guards were made separately, by hammering from sheet metal, and were attached with hinged to the sides of the helmet. The cheekguards closely follow the contours of the wearer's cheeks, chin and nose, terminating at the middle, raising against the sides of the nasal, and thus fully enclosing the face, leaving only eyes open. When making a composite image in Photoshop I noticed that there formed a narrow slit between the cheek guards. This is probably an artifact of Photoshopping, or the cheek guards were not perfectly symmetrical in reality, and there was no slit between them. There are holes drilled at the tips of the cheek guards, so they could be tied together with a cord.
Italo-Chalcidian helmet in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
This is the second Italo-Chalcidian helmet with fully face-enclosing cheek guards. I do not know any other examples of this helmet style at the moment.
This helmet was posted on Reddit in 2019, and it was on the website of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia at least in February 2022, but can no longer be found there. Since no other information exists, I believe it to be in the collection of the Hermitage, but taken off the website for unknown reasons.
Dating:
The helmet dates to early 5th century BCE (the turn of the Archaic to Classical period in Greek chronology), and comes from Vulci, thus being of Etruscan manufacture. It is older than the helmet in the Metropolitan Museum by circa 50 to 100 years, and because of that it's stylistically different.
Description:
The helmet is made of bronze. The skull part was cast near the finished shape, and finalized by hammering. The skull is more round than in the MET helmet, without a hint of a ridge at top. There is a carinated ridge going around the helmet separating the skull part from the rest. The forehead raises up but do not form a point at the front. The front part of the carinated ridge is decorated with a band of tongues and below that a band of hair locks incised to the helmet just like in the MET helmet, although the tongues are wider in this helmet. The helmet surely has cut out earholes at the sides as well as a neck guard, although they do not show in this photograph. A hint of a short and angular neck guard can be seen through the left eyehole of the helmet.
The eyeholes are teardrop shaped, very beautifully formed with a beveled edge. The nasal is thickly cast and of the diamond shape, like often found on Chalcidian helmets. The edge of the eyeholes and nasal are decorated with incised border lines, six in number altogether, in two groups. The forehead is further decorated with high arching eyebrows, coming together at the middle, and showing traces of being silvered or gilded.
The helmet has suffered considerable damage, probably post-deposit. The left side of the skull is shattered into pieces, now reconstructed together in a slightly deformed shape. Some small pieces are missing from the cheek guards, and they are bent a little. There are four small very asymmetrically drilled holes on the forehead of the helmet, in pairs. The holes continue in pairs on the skull of the helmet, but how far back is not possible to say from this single photograph. There is a slightly larger hole drilled to the left temple of the helmet. The purpose of these holes is not clear to me, they might be for attaching a longitudinal crest, but this seems unlikely, since the holes come too far over the forehead, and are very asymmetrically placed. There are small metallic loops connected to the sides of the helmet, over the earholes. Inside the loops are metal hooks, purpose of which is unknown, but could be related to crest attachments.
The cheek guards have been made separately, and attached to the helmet with hinges. In the museum display the cheek guards hang loose, far away from each other, but in closed position they would touch each other at the chin, and their upper corners would rest against the nasal. They contour to the face of the helmet's wearer, and cover up the lower half of the face completely. There is a hinge remaining at the lower corner of the left cheek guard, the hinge of the right cheek guard has been broken off. These were originally connected with a metallic pin when the helmet was worn, so that the cheek pieces could not accidentally open during a fight. The eyeholes are bigger on this helmet than on the MET helmet.
The cheek guards are decorated with embossed wild boars, one on each cheek, heading to the front. The bristles on the backs of the boars show traces of being possibly gilded. The cheek guards were originally also decorated around their perimeter with Vitruvian scroll pattern, which was possibly silvered.
The hinge pins of the cheek guards (if they are original) show flattened heads towards the front, which have a hole in each one. This means the hinge pins can be pulled out for removing the cheek guards completely. The same kind of hinge pins are found on later Medieval helmets that have removable visors. Thus this helmet which has very good protective qualities could also have been worn with either a pair of another (perhaps smaller) cheek guards, or without them altogether. This would make it a versatile piece of equipment that could suit a variety of combat needs. Could the metal hooks hanging just behind the cheek guard hinges be somehow related to the removable hinge pins (perhaps the pins were tied to them so they wouldn't get lost?) remains a mystery. If the other helmet in MET also had removable cheek guards (the pin doesn't look like removable, but it could be broken or a reconstruction), and if they are connected with the side rings is also a fascinating question that cannot be yet answered.
Conclusions
Based on these two helmets I can say that there was a regional variety of Chalcidian type helmets in Etruria, which had face-covering cheek guards. It is not possible to say how far this style was spread, perhaps it only occurred in Vulci, where both of these helmets were most probably made. Vulci was a rich Etruscan (and later Roman) city some 80 km northwest of Rome, which was abandoned in the Early Middle Ages. It was then largely forgotten in history, until it was excavated in modern times, and yielded innumerable riches.
Both of these helmets are of the highest quality of craftsmanship, splendidly decorated with precious metals, applying techniques of embossing, incising, applique work, silvering and gilding. They must have belonged to some of the richest warriors of their city-state.
The decoration on the helmets have animistic and apotropaic qualities. The helmet in the Hermitage has boars embossed on its cheek guards. Boars were considered to have ferocious qualities suitable to a warrior. Since the Bronze Age these animals were associated with the upper class warriors, who hunted them to show their courage. Boars were often depicted on armament, such as shields and helmets, both in Greece and Italy. This boar–warrior connection lasted until the Early Middle Ages.
The helmet in the MET has a gorgoneion applied on its forehead. Gorgon Medusa in Greek mythology was a snake-haired monster who was so terrifying that it petrified all men who dared to look at her. The frightening gaze was utilized by those who brandished the gorgoneion on their equipment, and it was indeed a popular symbol, especially in the Archaic Period, on shields, helmets, and armour. The gorgoneion had also protective apotropaic quality of warding off the evil eye. The Pegasus on top of the helmet is related to the Gorgon myth, since it emerged from the blood of Medusa.
It could be said that the Etruscans had a liking for more face covering than their contemporaries in Greece, perhaps reflecting that changes in warfare that favoured more open helmets in Greece had not yet reached northern Italy. It is also possible that it was just individual choice which played a role in Etruria, or a peculiar Vulcian armour-tradition. But there are other Etruscan Chalcidian type helmets, like the one from Todi (75 km northeast from Vulci), that have larger cheek guards (although not connecting at the chin) than those found in southern Italy or Greece itself. Furthermore some older Corinthian type helmets from Italy had their (immovable) cheek guards connected at the chin. Maybe this indeed was an Italic fashion?
Since there is something between 50 to 100 years between these two helmets, I think it is safe to say that Chalcidian helmets with face-enclosing cheek guards were not just a whim of a single armourer, but a genuine style of helmet that existed at least for a few generations in Vulci, Etruria, from the early 5th century to late 5th or even 4th century BCE.
Reconstruction
As a bonus, here is a photograph of a reconstructed helmet based on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's example, worn by an Etruscan reenactor. This helmet was made by Ferran Garreta in Spain, for the Gilena Museum Collection, and is presented here in 2023. Thanks to David Ruiz García for the kind permission of the use of this photograph. Only with a well made reconstruction one can clearly see how magnificent this helmet originally was.
