Vikings

[transposable_element]

Having long, protracted, yet fundamentally silly argument with a friend of Maritus's about whether Vikings had horns on their helmets.

According to the archaeological record, contemporary paintings and sculpture, and contemporary descriptions, they did not.

For some reason, however, this friend keeps sending me pictures of Bronze Age petroglyphs (with horns!), 14th century German burial helmets (with horns!), and Medieval Russian armor (with horns!), as though this proves something. Arrgh.

Comments

[transposable_element]

I mean, the Anasazi show horned figures in their petroglyphs, but nobody thinks this means they wore silly battle helmets with cow horns on.

[heliopausa]

:D Sympathies! with a grin, because oh, how frustrating and fruitless! but also sort of funny, how the friend kept on desperately wanting to prove the unprovable with evidence that wasn't evidence.
Not so funny to have the non-evidence continually being dinged into your ears, I admit.

(also, sobering to note the terrifying power of an image to plant an idea in people's minds - innocently in this case, but so easily not.)

[transposable_element]

He seems to have given up at last, after I got slightly tetchy. Whew!

On the other hand, I did find out a few cool things about armor while looking stuff up. For example, he sent this to me, and I finally got around to finding out what that kind of closed, hinged helmet was called, and where and when it was used (armet or close helmet; western Europe; 15th and 16th centuries).

[heliopausa]

That's quite a fascinating picture! Whose armour would that have been? I tried chasing the motto on the shield, but that didn't lead me anywhere useful. It looks faintly Asian, but the motto's in Latin... Is it far eastern European, maybe?
(Thank you for the word armet. :) )