Phrygian helmet
As a Phrygian or Thracian helmet is called an antique type bronze helmet, which was worn by the ancient Greeks and in the Hellenistic -influenced countries mainly.
Description
The dome (helmet bell) was highly shaped and had in many cases a forwardly inclined or raid tip, similar to the Phrygian cap. Other features were a narrow visor and large, attached cheek pieces that offered good protection to the face. The latter also reminiscent of that form of a Phrygian cap, which was worn by the Thracians. The cheek pieces could be also fused to the chin and upper lip, in which case they are referred to as a "beard" (in fact, was often a beard stamped as an ornament ). On the bell could sometimes be mounted a horse's mane or feathers. Movable cheek flaps and wings were attached to the helmets.
This type of helmet is already found on late Hittite sculptures of the 8th century BC, in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Cyprus. After representations in Greek art, he was more commonly used from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century BC. The main area of the finds are the Danube estuary, Greece and southern Italy.
Origin
Based on descriptions of helmets and clothing in the Homeric epics and results of experimental archeology reconstructed in the 1970s Gérard Seiterle the " Homeric leather helmet " as the common precursor of Phrygian helmet and Phrygian cap. Thus it was when Korys (or kyneae ) tryphalos or amphiphalos originally a helmet from hard dried cowhide, more precisely, from the fur game around the scrotum of a bull, however, amplifies early with parts made of bronze and then recreated entirely in bronze been. The ornamental epithets tryphalos and amphiphalos mean something like: " provided with four phaloi " or " provided on both sides with phaloi ", the rarer aulopsis: " tubular " (literally " stieläugig "). In these previously difficult to interpret phaloi it was probably around four vestigial teats of the bull, which are arranged in pairs and are located directly in front of the scrotum. Upon drying, the inverted over a dummy head leather, these teats harden into horn-like, tubular spines that adorn the front section of the helmet and in addition increase. The scrotum was stuffed it and bent forward ( in Homer referred to as kymbachos ). So there was a good basis for securing a helmet bush horsehair with a favorable weight distribution ( Lophos, see the Roman Christa ). Around the dome, a band was placed in leather or metal ( stephane ), which covered the seam between the cap and also leather cheeks and neck protectors. In addition, Homer mentions yet another hat made out of leather bull named kataityx. From the fact that it was marked as aphalos (without Phaloi ) and alophos (without bush ), includes Seiterle that this headgear made of the same material as the helmet was described, but not hard dried but was soft tanned. This headgear of easy gunmen and message runners probably continued to show long ears and neck straps, as they also have early forms of Phrygian cap yet.