Canterbury helmet

Last updated

The Canterbury Helmet is an Iron Age helmet found in a field near Canterbury, Kent, England, in December 2012. Made of bronze, it is one of only a few helmets dating from the Iron Age to ever have been found in Britain. The helmet currently resides in the British Museum, and is undergoing conservation work. It was found by Mr Trevor Rogers, who found it together with an iron brooch and a pin, and it is thought to have contained a bag with cremated human remains.

Contents

Construction

The helmet was made of sheet bronze, and was of the Coolus style, a type used by both Gallic Warriors and Roman Legionaries, with a bowl shape and a flared beck to protect the back of the head and neck. This type of helmet was common on the continent, but is not commonly seen in Britain, though this may simply be due to the lack of finds from this era.

Context

It is unclear where exactly the helmet is from. It is thought by some historians that it may be the burial of a Roman soldier from Caesar's Invasions of Britain, or that it may be the helmet of a British mercenary who had served against the Romans in Gaul, and had adopted a Continental helmet style. Other historians and archaeologists believe it is simply a helmet inspired by Gallic designs. As the helmet was found in 2012, debate still rages about its nature and origin.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Tène culture</span> Iron Age culture of Europe

The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age, succeeding the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul, the Etruscans, and the Golasecca culture, but whose artistic style nevertheless did not depend on those Mediterranean influences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sutton Hoo</span> Archaeological site in Suffolk, England

Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artifacts was discovered. The site is important in establishing the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia as well as illuminating the Anglo-Saxons during a period which lacks historical documentation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regni</span> Late Iron Age and Roman era British tribe

The Regni were a Celtic tribe or group of tribes living in Britain prior to the Roman Conquest, and later a civitas or canton of Roman Britain. They lived in what is now Sussex, as well as small parts of Hampshire, Surrey and Kent, with their tribal heartland at Noviomagus Reginorum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Iron Age</span> Period of British prehistory predating the Roman occupation

The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, which had an independent Iron Age culture of its own. The Iron Age is not an archaeological horizon of common artefacts but is rather a locally-diverse cultural phase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistoric Wales</span> History of Wales before AD 48

Prehistoric Wales in terms of human settlements covers the period from about 230,000 years ago, the date attributed to the earliest human remains found in what is now Wales, to the year AD 48 when the Roman army began a military campaign against one of the Welsh tribes. Traditionally, historians have believed that successive waves of immigrants brought different cultures into the area, largely replacing the previous inhabitants, with the last wave of immigrants being the Celts. However, studies of population genetics now suggest that this may not be true, and that immigration was on a smaller scale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Celtic warfare</span> Warfare of the Ancient Celts

Ancient Celtic warfare refers to the historical methods of warfare employed by various Celtic people and tribes from Classical antiquity through the Migration period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulcombe</span> Human settlement in England

Ulcombe is a village near the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. The name is recorded in the Domesday Book and is thought to derive from 'Owl-coomb': 'coomb' meaning 'a deep little wooded valley; a hollow in a hill side' in Old English. The original deserted Medieval village site lies to the east of the parish church in a valley. There is also a water-mill below this site, probably of early origins. It stands below the Greensand Way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sutton Hoo helmet</span> Decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet

The Sutton Hoo helmet is a decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet found during a 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. It was buried around the years c. 620–625 AD and is widely associated with an Anglo-Saxon leader, King Rædwald of East Anglia; its elaborate decoration may have given it a secondary function akin to a crown. The helmet was both a functional piece of armour and a decorative piece of metalwork. An iconic object from an archaeological find hailed as the "British Tutankhamen", it has become a symbol of the Early Middle Ages, "of Archaeology in general", and of England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crosby Garrett Helmet</span> Copper alloy Roman cavalry helmet

The Crosby Garrett Helmet is a copper alloy Roman cavalry helmet dating from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD. It was found by an unnamed metal detectorist near Crosby Garrett in Cumbria, England, in May 2010. Later investigations found that a Romano-British farming settlement had occupied the site where the helmet was discovered, which was located a few miles away from a Roman road and a Roman army fort. It is possible that the owner of the helmet was a local inhabitant who had served with the Roman cavalry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waterloo Helmet</span> Celtic ceremonial helmet

The Waterloo Helmet is a pre-Roman Celtic bronze ceremonial horned helmet with repoussé decoration in the La Tène style, dating to circa 150–50 BC, that was found in 1868 in the River Thames by Waterloo Bridge in London, England. It is now on display at the British Museum in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meyrick Helmet</span> Iron Age archaeological discovery

The Meyrick Helmet is an Iron Age bronze peaked helmet, with La Tène style decoration, that is held at the British Museum in London. It is one of only four Iron Age helmets to have been discovered in Britain, the other three being the more famous Waterloo Helmet, the Canterbury Helmet and the North Bersted Warrior helmet. Unlike the Waterloo Helmet, which bears two cone-shaped horns, the Meyrick Helmet is hornless and appears to be based on a Roman model. Vincent Megaw, emeritus professor of archaeology at the University of Leicester, has conjectured that the helmet may have belonged to a British auxiliary fighting in the Roman army during the campaigns against the Brigantes in AD 71–74.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celts in Transylvania</span> Geographical aspect of Celts

The appearance of Celts in Transylvania can be traced to the later La Tène period . Excavation of the great La Tène necropolis at Apahida, Cluj County, by S. Kovacs at the turn of the 20th century revealed the first evidence of Celtic culture in Romania. The 3rd–2nd century BC site is remarkable for its cremation burials and chiefly wheel-made funeral vessels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddington, Kent</span> Human settlement in England

Eddington was a village in Kent, South East England to the south-east of Herne Bay, to the west of Beltinge and to the north of Herne. It is now a suburb of Herne Bay, in Greenhill and Eddington Ward, one of the five wards of Herne Bay. Its main landmark for over 100 years until 2010 was Herne Bay Court, a former school which once possessed one of the largest and best-equipped school engineering workshops in England; it later became a Christian conference centre.

The year 2012 in archaeology involved some significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shorwell helmet</span> Anglo-Saxon helmet from the early to mid-sixth century AD found near Shorwell on the Isle of Wight

The Shorwell helmet is an Anglo-Saxon helmet from the early to mid-sixth century AD found near Shorwell on the Isle of Wight in southern England. It was one of the grave goods of a high-status Anglo-Saxon warrior, and was found with other objects such as a pattern-welded sword and hanging bowl. One of only six known Anglo-Saxon helmets, alongside those found at Benty Grange (1848), Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), and Staffordshire (2009), it is the sole example to derive from the continental Frankish style rather than the contemporaneous Northern "crested helmets" used in England and Scandinavia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gjermundbu helmet</span> Viking Age helmet

The Gjermundbu helmet is a Viking Age helmet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deal Warrior</span> Iron age burial site

The Deal Warrior, also known as the Mill Hill Warrior, is an Iron Age burial uncovered in Grave 112 at Mill Hill near Deal, Kent in 1988 by Dover Archaeological Group. It is well known for being suggested as the grave of a druid due to containing an almost-unique bronze headdress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guilden Morden boar</span> Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar

The Guilden Morden boar is a sixth- or seventh-century Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar that may have once served as the crest of a helmet. It was found around 1864 or 1865 in a grave in Guilden Morden, a village in the eastern English county of Cambridgeshire. There the boar attended a skeleton with other objects, including a small earthenware bead with an incised pattern, although the boar is all that now remains. Herbert George Fordham, whose father originally discovered the boar, donated it to the British Museum in 1904; as of 2018 it was on view in room 41.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hellvi helmet eyebrow</span> Iron Age helmet eyebrow fragment

The Hellvi helmet eyebrow is a decorative eyebrow from a Vendel Period helmet. It comprises two fragments; the arch is made of iron decorated with strips of silver, and terminates in a bronze animal head that was cast on. The eyebrow was donated to the Statens historiska museum in November 1880 along with several other objects, all said to be from a grave find in Gotland, Sweden.

Julia Farley is a British archaeologist specialising in Iron Age and Roman metalwork. She is the Curator of the European Iron Age & Roman Conquest Period collections at the British Museum.

References

Notes
    Sources