[Damien Fegan]

I have always been fascinated by vendel /valsgarde helmets and have recently been quietly drooling over the reconstructions in Wotan's Warriors. one section on the broa helmet in there has me confused as it suggests that there was a faceplate fragment found with this helmet. Other reconstructions show it with a jaw plate similar to vendel 14 and the drawings i have from the excavation show it with a short ocular guard like those on vaslgarde 8 or vendel 1. Can anybody shed any light on this.
damien

[Wilhelm S.]

I thought the same thing and asked. As I remember there are two different helmets. Matt's beautiful example and the super bitchen one with the face plate.

[Paul Mortimer]

There is a face plate from a helmet from Broa - but there is more than one helmet found in that area -- or at least fragments of helmets. The reconstruction of the full helmet is a different helmet to the one the face plate comes from. I am sorry if I didn't make that totally clear in the book. In all, if memory serves there are remains of about 20 helmets from the island for the Vendel period -- none seem to be as ornate as those from the lands of the Svear.

I hope, next year, to be getting a good look at many of those remains.

Thank you for reading the book.


Cheers,


Paul

[Wilhelm S.]

Paul thats the book I read my self to sleep with every night. Thanks for writing it.

[Bruce Tordoff]

Hi Willhelm,
Do you mean when you say two examples, Matt Bunkers replica and the replica with the faceplate?

If so, they are one and the same. Matt had the 'face plate' (ie the V14 style cheek plates, that join at the chin), attached to his original Broa helm.

and Damien, just as a point of interest, As the reconstruction on Matts Cheek plates was sort of based (conjecturally I believe) on the reconstruction drawing in Paul's book by Dave Huggins, I discussed with the maker, whether the two 'lobes' depicted in the drawing which face horizontally inwards on the inside edge of the cheek plates, were actually necessary in this instance. The reasoning being, that whilst on the V14, these 'lobes' effectively act as the lower/outer quadrant of an occular, the Broa has its own Occular so these lobes are redundant and would make the Cheek plates unfeasably long if they were included and certainly if they had similar proportions to those on the V14. So they were made with the inside edge following essentially the same curvature of the outer edge of the Broa Occular.

Have a look at Matts helm as it is now, to get what I mean if its not clear.
In fact here it is,

Bruce

[Wilhelm S.]

In the Book, there is a photo of a reconstructed Broa helmet. It has a face plate more akin to the Sutton Hoo then the V14. I was under the impression that Matts helmet was based off of one and the "faceplate" Broa was based off of another. Am I incorrect?

[Bruce Tordoff]

Willhelm,
ahh, you got me there, I'll have to have a look through the book, to refresh my memory of the photo you are referring to. Paul, Dave or indeed Matt may be better disposed, to answer your question regarding the sources of the faceplate.
Bruce

[Paul Mortimer]

The reconstruction in the book is based on what Tweddle says in his, 'The Coppergate Helmet'. Unfortunately, he doesn't provide a great deal of information, except that it was similar to the Vendel XIV. Matt's helmet has been given extra aesthetic consideration and is just an interpretation of the evidence; but it looks right. When I get a good look at the what remains in 2013 I may be able to give a more accurate consideration and provide a more authoritative answer; however, from what I have seen so far there is quite a bit of room for manouver.

Wilhelm - many thanks for the kind words about the book.

Paul