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The Benty Grange Helm

Owners Note1: After received my copy of Dominic Tweddle's "The Anglian Helm from Coppergate," I've gained alot of information on Pre-Viking helms and a whole new insight on some issue's dealing with them. I highly recommend obtaining a copy of the book if you are interested in any of the helms listed below.  Most of the information below came from said book, but it is still worth buying! Better pictures of the originals and their line drawings are on the way! Contact me with any questions you may have regarding any of the info below! 

This style of helmet was found at a dig at Benty Grange in Buckinghamshire, England. It is dated to the late seventh-century.

The find consisted of a skeleton formerly of iron bands, radiating from the crown of the head, and riveted to a circle of the same metal which encompassed the brow: from the impression on the metal it is evident that the outside was covered with plates of horn disposed diagonally so as to produce a herring-bone pattern, the ends of these plates were secured beneath with strips of horn corresponding with the iron framework, and attached to it by ornamental rivets of silver at intervals of about an inch and a half from each other; on the bottom of the front rib, which projects so as to form a nasal, is a small silver cross slightly ornamented round the edges by a beaded molding; and on the crown of the helmet is an elliptical bronze plate supporting the figure of an animal carved in iron, with bronze eyes, now much corroded, but perfectly distinct as there presentation of a hog. There are to also many fragments, some more or less ornamented with silver, which have been riveted to some part of the helmet in a manner not to be explained or even understood, there are also some small buckles of iron which probably served to fasten it upon the head.

Amongst the chainwork is a very curious six-pronged instrument of iron, in shape much like an ordinary hay-fork, with the difference of the tang, which in the latter is driven into the shaft, being in this instrument flattened and doubled over so as to form a small loop apparently convenient for suspension; whether it belonged to the helmet or the corselet, next to be described, is uncertain. The iron chainwork already named, consists of a large number of links of two kinds, attached to each other by small rings half and inch diameter; one kind are flat and lozenge shaped, about an inch and a half long; the others are all of one kind but of different lengths, varying from 4 to 10 inches. They are simply lengths of square rod iron with perforated ends, through which pass the rings connecting them with the diamond shaped links; they all show the impression of cloth over a considerable part of the surface, and it is therefore no improbable conjecture that they would originally constitute a kind of quilted cuirass, being sewn up within, or upon a doublet of strong cloth.

1. Tweddle, Dominic. The Anglian Helmet from Coppergate. Council for British Archaeology 1992