In ancient times, the fist and nails and teeth were weapons.
After the stones and branches of trees in a dense forest …
Later, even a man learned the power of bronze with iron.
Only at first bronze was used, and later iron.
Titus Lucretius Kar "On the nature of things"
Archaeologists can be said to be lucky. Celtic helmets are found in abundance. Ancient authors also left their descriptions to us. But here's what's interesting: for example, the description of the Celtic helmet, left by Diodorus, does not correspond to the information provided to us by archeology. From them it is clear that the helmets of the Celts were bronze and decorated with helmet decoration, which made their owners visually much higher. He also reports that they could have been in the form of horns, or the appearance of a bird or an animal. And such helmets were found, but they are not massive.
Helmet. La Tene Culture (British Museum, London).
For example, in the area between Ancona and Rimini, the territory where the Senones settled, helmets with a visor in the back and a small sharpening in the upper part were found. Such helmets were given the name Montefortine - after the name of the burial where they were first found. The material for them was armor and, most likely, they appeared in Italy at the same time as the Senones.
Gallic helmet. Museum Saint-Germain, France Saint-Germain.
True, the classic Montefortine helmet, in addition to the back and rather elongated dome, also had cheek pads, and the early helmets in the Senones' burials do not have them. In 282 BC. this Celtic tribe was ousted by the Romans from its places of residence. So the helmets found in the Senonian burials must have been made earlier than this time. The material they are made of is either iron or iron and bronze, and only occasionally are they completely bronze. Some of them have a complex holder for some unknown helmet decoration, reminiscent of a double fork.
Villanov's helmet of culture, 19th century BC. (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
The people of this culture were the first to start working on iron in the territory of what is now Italy, and they also cremated their deceased with the subsequent burial of their ashes in urns in the form of a double cone.
Such a helmet already has cheek pads, and, interestingly, they all have the shape of a triangle, consisting of three convex discs. It resembles the breastplates of the Samnite carapaces so much that one would think that either the Samnites looked at these cheeks when they made their carapaces, or the Senones copied them from the carapaces belonging to the Samnites. In the III century. BC. their shape has become simpler, they have become completely triangular in shape, and instead of discs, three "bumps" have appeared on them. The Italians themselves, however, quickly adopted the Montefortine helmets from the Celts and used them quite widely. For example, a helmet found in Bologna bears an Etruscan inscription, which makes it possible to date it to a time when the Etruscans had not yet left the area. But the same helmet received universal recognition throughout Western Europe, and not only in Italy.
Such helmets were found in Yugoslavia, on the victorious frieze in Pergamum you can also see it, and it clearly belonged to the Galatians. Although the Celts were driven out of Italy by the first quarter of the 2nd century. BC, the Montefortine helmet has not disappeared anywhere, only to make it steel from iron. The cheek pads slightly changed their shape, but, as before, remained the main recognizable feature of these helmets, which became the main type of helmet of the early Roman army, in which it was used … for four centuries! According to experts, about three or four million of them could have been made, so it is not surprising that their finds are so frequent.
Helmet from Alesia.
There was another type of helmet, similar to the Montefortine one, but without the "lump" on the top of its head. Such a helmet is called "kulus", after a model found in France. According to Connolly, it did not have the same success as the Montefortino, but it was still widely used in the 1st century. BC. Its origin may be as old as the Montefortine one - one of them found in a Senonian burial, and there is a specimen from a Hallstatt burial, which can be dated to 400 BC.
Some of the helmets have some sort of winglet decoration on the sides, similar to the wings of the Samnite helmets. It is believed that they were widespread in the Balkans in the III-II centuries. BC. On the arch in Orange one can see hemispherical helmets with visors and horns. And again, an amazing example of a horned helmet of clearly ceremonial purpose was found in the River Thames near Waterloo Bridge. It was called that, but it is clearly not a combat one, although many artists did not avoid the temptation to put it on the heads of the warriors participating in the battle! Well, helmets with animal figures described by Diodorus are extremely rare. Actually archaeologists have found only one such specimen. And they found him in Kiumeshti, in Romania. This is again a typical Monterfontin helmet with a knob and a bird figurine on its top. The wings outstretched to the sides have loops, and, in theory, they can flap during the race, when its owner raced across the battlefield.
Celtic warriors. Drawing by Angus McBride.
In a number of Celtic burials in northern Italy, Etruscan helmets belonging to the Negau type were found. It is also a sphero-conical helmet, but with a transverse ridge and rim. And the Celts borrowed this type, which is confirmed by the finds of Negau helmets in the Central Alps, that is, in their places of residence.
In the 1st century. BC. two new helmets, related to each other, came into use at once. Therefore, it is customary to combine them into one agency-type type. The first - the Agenian type looks like a "bowler hat" with fields, and the port "bowler hat" has a large back plate. The cheek pads on them are of a new type - the one that was later adopted by the Romans. It is believed that the port type is the direct prototype of the so-called imperial Gallic helmet of the 1st century. AD Samples of these helmets, made entirely of iron, are found in northern Yugoslavia, the Central Alps, Switzerland, and many parts of central and southwestern France. All these places are the Roman frontier at the beginning of the 1st century. BC, so one should not be surprised at their localization.
Helmet of the Montefortino type (350 - 300 BC). Museum of National Archeology in Perugia. Italy.
Cheek pads from Alesia in central France 1st century BC. are a rather strange mixture of the classic Italic type, as they are decorated with "bumps" and "three-disc" of the old type. There are also finds of conical Greco-Italic helmets with characteristic Celtic decorations. Why is that? Obviously, a lot of weapons were captured as trophies. The helmet is broken, but the cheek pads are intact: "let's take them and put them on a new helmet!" It is possible that the blacksmith's accessories were also captured - dies, punches for forging, well, what was then used there and again used this in their own interests. Apparently, the Romans were practical (and all the sources say about this!) And did not consider the use of someone else's armor a betrayal.
However, most Celts fought without armor. Diodorus writes that they smeared their heads with lime and combed their hair at the back of the head in such a way that they looked like a horse's mane that stood upright. We see this hairstyle on several coins, so there is no doubt that it was. Perhaps it was through this that the comb appeared on the helmets, only it was no longer made from their own hair, but from horse hair!
A carapace shaped like a cape from Etruria. Museum of Philadelphia University.
420 - 250 BC. only a few bronze discs have survived to us, which can be called breast plates, although they could also be decorative ornaments of a horse harness. A statue from Grezan from the south of France, dating from the 4th – 3rd centuries. BC, shows us a warrior with a carapace in the form of a square chest plate and a back plate on straps. But this statue cannot be called typically Celtic; maybe she has nothing to do with them at all!
According to Peter Connolly, chain mail appeared among the Celts around 300 BC. And this despite the fact that they had no addiction to armor. It was not, but somehow they came up with it! Chain mail is called Celtic by Strabo. Indeed, the earliest examples of chain mail were found in Celtic burials! But since the chain mail was an extremely time-consuming and expensive thing, it could be used practically only by Celtic aristocrats, and maybe … priests ?!
Bronze helmet from Montefortino with cheek pads. 1st century BC e., found in the Rhine near Mainz. German National Museum (Nuremberg, Germany).
Various statues depicting chainmail-clad warriors found in southern France and northern Italy show two types of this armor: one with wide cape-shaped shoulder pads; and the second, which resembles the Greek linen shell without the "cape". Probably, the first type was just originally Celtic.
In Romania, in a burial of the 3rd century. BC. They also found fragments of chain mail, and maybe even more than one, since one part of the rings consists of rows of alternating stamped and butt-joined rings, and on the second all the rings are riveted. Such weaving is considered more reliable. The diameter of the rings is approximately 8 mm. The shoulder pads of the chain mail, shaped like a Greek linen carapace, were fastened to her chest. That is, the Celts at that time could not think of a chain mail with sleeves, short or long, but simply took a linen shell and replaced the flexible fabric in it with flexible chain mail!
Cuirass of the Celts. Museum Saint-Germain, France.
Diodorus, however, very often writes that the same Gauls went into battle naked. In the beginning, probably, it was so, but he himself describes the time later. For example, Polybius describes the Gazates, who crossed the Alps, to fight alongside the Celts at the battle of Telamon in 225. And so they just adhered to the old customs. And all the other Gauls were dressed in trousers and light raincoats. Well, under Caesar, the Celts fought already fully clothed!
For comparison: the armor of a Greek hoplite from a museum in Argos.
Celtic culture is very popular in the West (and why it is so understandable!). Here is a wall calendar for 2016 depicting the Celtic antiquities of the British Museum can be bought within its walls for 9.99 pounds sterling.
