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The Ulltuna 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! 

It was found in the town of Ulltuna just outside Uppsala, Sweden.  The helm, like the Sutton Hoo helm, shows the design influence of late Roman cavalry helms. The cap of the helm is  rather differently than most of the other helms found at the Valsgärde area. It incorporates a brow band and a nose-to-nape band but is without the lateral band that provide a frame work for "filler" plates. Instead the helmet halves are made from diagonally woven strips of iron riveted together.  These halves were probably intended to be decorative as they were originally slightly separated to yield an effect much like that discussed above in the Valsgärde 5 section.  The helm has no check plates and is similar in construction to the Valsgärde 5 helm. Metal strips were suspended from the back of the helm to offer neck protection, though only one of these survive. The technique of the "basketwork" construction is suppose to be surprisingly easy to master and the resulting bowl is rigid in use and would have been an effective protection against anything but arrows. The neck guards are probably no more or no less effective a protection than a ringmail drape across the back. Both these construction techniques presumably are much easier to master than beaten bowl construction or manufacture of ring mail. There is no facial protection on this helm, even the extremely small nasal (if it can be called that) offers very little in the way of protection . It features the same low caps as the Valsgärde 5 and 14 helms with no concavities for the eyeholes and lacks the eyebrow decorations that the other Valsgärde helms have. The crest of the helm is a high, rounded crest with an axial spine with animal heads of both the front and back. It is much harder to date this helmet as it lacks the decoration used to date the Valsgärde helms, but a broad range of 7th to early 8th century is accepted. It is considered a Group B1 by Arwidsson's classification. 

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