Cretan Helmet

[Nik Dowman]

Greetings,

I am reasonably new here, and I am wanting an opinion on this helmet:




I know the helmet itself is fake but I am curious if the design is accurate. It is described as being from the Minoan era, from Crete, and that it is dated from around 1100 B.C

Can anyone confirm this? I am quite keen to get manning imperial to make one for me.

Cheers

Nik

[Matthew Amt]

Khaire!

Someone said that's supposed to be from 1100 BC? Weird, because it's clearly a variation on a Classical Corinthian helmet, c. 500 BC. The nasal is missing. Looks like one of those green-painted really heavy cast things from Hellenic Arts or places like that. Doesn't bear any relation to any Bronze Age helmets, though.

Was it actually being presented as an original item, an antique? That would certainly earn it a rating of "fake", whereas if it's just being sold as a repro, it's just a repro! And I've seen worse.

Huh, I suppose it could be based on an actual Corinthian-style helmet from Crete. I vaguely recall something...

Manning can certainly make you a wonderful Corinthian helmet of most any style, and probably any other type of helmet, too. Just give him some good photos of whatever original turns you on, or images from ancient artwork. He does great work!

Matthew

[Gregory J. Liebau]

Looks fake as hell. The crazy borders and brow embossing that is peculiarly similar to Hellenistic artwork showing Boeotian helmets with laurels make it... Also looks like it was welded, looking at the exposed line at the back of the neck (behind the occular). It's not original nor even a documented reproduction, judging from what I'm looking at in that picture.

If it is original... Well, it would be from no early than about 400 BC with that style of decoration over the brow.

[Nik Dowman]

Yeah, I knew the brow piece, and the designes around the edges would not be accurate, but I was hoping that a helmet like this without the decoration may have exsisted from around that time

[Nik Dowman]

Sorry Matthew, I did not see your reply there. The helmet was found on this site:

http://www.thefakebusters.com/eBay%20news/...helmets%201.htm

They were not too clear on if it was from that era.

I'm already on the wait list for Manning Imperial (2 years!) but wanted to assure the design is historically accurate.

[Matthew Amt]

Huh, hadn't seen that page before. Yeah, it's a little ambiguous, because that first helmet and the one you posted are not the same. Probably that first one *is* a fake, but it's hard to tell if the second one was really sold as an antique or not. There is definitely a lot of fake garbage out there! But it makes a lot of money for the sellers, sometimes even from reputable dealers. A couple years ago the Roman Army Talk board had photos of a classic hundred-dollar Indian-made junk "Roman Trooper" helmet that had been acid-bathed and sold to a big-name dealer for around $50,000! So I'm thinking that with my collection of much better repros and an old car battery, I could be set for life!

Muahahahahaaaaa....

Matthew

[Gregory J. Liebau]

Nik, if you're going to put in the money to have Craig Sitch make you a masterpiece (which he will because that's what he does) and take the time to wait for it... I have no better suggestion to you than to choose one of the existing helmets that is known to be a Bronze Age example and have it reproduced in all of its glory. You'll feel a lot better about the final product than you would with a theoretical reconstruction based on multiple sources and little solid evidence.

-Gregory

[Dan Howard]

Thre are a couple of pics on this forum that look similar

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Cent...post&id=2997669
http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Cent...post&id=3015054

[Gregory J. Liebau]

I'd say that at least the second one of those, for sure, shows separate cheek plates and a conical top, rather than a classical one-piece design.

[Nik Dowman]

That is the one that I had also seen, before I saw the fake.