Benti Grange helmet - helmet of the Anglo-Saxon warrior of the 7th century AD. In 1848, he was found by Thomas Bateman at the Benti Grange farm in Derbyshire, after excavating a mound there. Obviously, this burial was plundered in antiquity, however, what fell into the hands of scientists is enough to assert that it was the burial of some noble warrior … Thomas Bateman himself was an archaeologist and antiquary, nicknamed the "Knight of the Mounds", since he unearthed over 500 of them!
Of course, for a layman, the Benti Grange helmet is not a very impressive thing. Much rust and little gold and silver. But it is valuable for its uniqueness, and its image was included in all historical monographs on military affairs and armor in Britain.
And now, before going further, I would like to indulge a little in memories that are directly related to this helmet. I remember well how as a child, after watching historical films with warriors in armor and helmets, I also wanted to make myself a helmet. It is clear that I could only make it out of paper. But how, after all, it does not stretch and it is impossible to make curved surfaces out of it. However, the very nature of the material prompted me a solution: on a wide rim around my head, I glued four strips of thick paper crosswise, and pasted the gaps between them with paper triangles. This is how the helmet turned out, in its design very similar to the "Benti Grange helmet", moreover, for some reason I glued a figurine of a plastic horse to its top. That is, we can say that if a 6-7 year old boy came up with this technical solution, then it should have come to the grown-up guys even more so. And that's how this type of helmet came about. And it was simple, cheap, convenient and … reliable.
The Romans, of course, made helmets much more spectacular. But from their culture in England remained mainly bridges and roads. Helmet from the "Berkasov Treasure" Vojvodina Museum, Novy Sad, Serbia.
The helmet had an iron frame, inside which horn plates were installed. Inside, it was covered with fabric or leather, but these materials, of course, were not preserved in the ground. Many believe that such a design, if it provided protection against weapons, was not very reliable. Therefore, they say, this helmet was richly decorated and, possibly, had a ceremonial purpose. It is one of six famous Anglo-Saxon helmets found in Sutton Hoo, York, Wollaston, Shorell and Staffordshire. The combination of its structural and technical details is unique, but similar helmets are known. It is believed that such helmets were used in Northern Europe from the 6th to the 11th century AD.
Derna Helmet, early 4th century AD (National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden)
The most eye-catching feature of this helmet is the boar on top of its head. But in this case there is cultural syncretism; this clearly pagan symbol complements the Christian cross on the nose.
A replica of the Benti Grange helmet at the Weston Park Museum in Sheffield. Doesn't it look very original, and besides, he is simply beautiful.
The base of the helmet consists of sixteen damaged fragments, and originally consisted of seven strips of iron, each 1 to 2 millimeters thick. The base was a strip 65 cm long and 2.5 cm wide, surrounding the head. Two stripes of the same width ran in front and behind: 40 cm length of the strip from nose to back of the head, width of 4.75 cm in front and 3, 8 cm in the back. The four squares created by these stripes were in turn divided by a narrower auxiliary stripe. Each auxiliary strip was attached to the outside of the main strip. Here these stripes were 22 mm wide, tapering to 15 mm towards the crown. There they overlapped at an angle of 50 ° under a figure fortified there. The interior of the helmet was most likely originally lined with leather or cloth.
The “empty spaces” between the iron plates were covered with eight horn plates, probably curved in shape, which were cut to fit the space created by the iron base. Now the horn is gone, but its mineralized remains have been preserved on the iron strips. The inserts consisted of three layers of stratum corneum; the inner ones, fitted one to one, and then two layers of horn went, filling the spaces between the metal stripes. All three layers were fastened with rivets: iron rivets, placed inside the helmet, fastened the horn and metal strips, but rivets made of silver or plated with silver, with ornamental heads in the form of a two-headed ax, were located outside, at a distance of 4 cm and connected plates in one "package".
The helmet had decorations; a cross on the nose and a figurine of an iron boar on the crown. The silver cross is 3, 9 cm high and 2 cm wide and consists of two parts. Around the cross in a zig-zag pattern, there are twenty-nine silver studs from the original forty that were probably inserted into small holes. But the most distinctive feature of this helmet is the boar attached to its top. Holes were made in the body of the boar, probably punched, which held round silver hairpins with a diameter of about 1.5 mm. The hairpins, which were probably flush with the surface of the body, were gilded and possibly intended for attaching gold bristles. The eyes were made of 5mm oval garnets set in gold rosettes with filigree wire trimmings. The rosettes were 8 mm long, 3.5 mm wide and had 8 mm long shanks filled with beeswax. The figurine was to be attached to an elliptical plate 9 cm long, and a maximum width of 1.9 cm, corresponding to the curvature of the helmet. Four holes on it indicate attachment points for the legs, and three more are connected to holes on a plate on the helmet frame, in addition to a large rivet hole slightly behind the center. So the figurine was attached to the helmet very carefully. It is clear that corrosion has largely "eaten" this wild boar, but it is undoubtedly a wild boar!
Now let's see what the Benti Grange mound itself was like. It was an embankment with a diameter of about 15 m and a height of 6 m, which was surrounded by a moat about 1 m wide and 0.3 m deep, and several more depressions about 3 m and 0.2 m in size. Other objects that are usually found in graves where there is a helmet, that is, a sword and a shield, were missing, which suggests that the grave had already been plundered earlier. They also found a cup, identified as made of leather, but probably made of wood, about 7.6 cm in diameter, the rim of which was edged with silver and decorated with four wheel-shaped ornaments and two crosses made of thin silver, attached with pins of the same metal. There were other finds, but under the influence of air they crumbled into dust. That is, it was just a burial, and not an accidental treasure. But who exactly was buried in it, of course, now we will never know.
Watercolor by Llewellyn Levitt 1886 depicting Benti Grange helmet details.
The helmet was first displayed at the Weston Park Museum in 1893, and in 1948 it was taken to the British Museum for study. It was possible to find out that the figurine of the wild boar was not integral, but consisted of two halves. The intricate construction of the Benti Grange boar is amazing because it combines the use of garnets, filigree, gold, silver, iron and bronze and is unique for Anglo-Saxon helmets, because the easiest way would be to cast such a figurine from bronze! But for some reason, the ancient masters chose such an extremely complex technology. First, they forged two halves of a boar figure, and hollow inside. Then they punched holes in them for fixing on the figure … bristles, inserted the eyes, filled the figure itself with wax and fixed it through the holes for the legs first on the plate, and only then this very plate was fixed on the helmet. The impression is that they clearly did not want to think about how to make their work easier, that the boar, in their opinion, could only be iron, but not bronze. And why this is all so - is still unclear! It is not known, by the way, how much it may cost, since no one has ever tried to sell or buy it.
