Boeotian Helmet - Characteristics

Characteristics

The Boeotian helmet was an open helmet, allowing good peripheral vision and unimpaired hearing. It had a domed skull surrounded by a wide, flaring, down-sloping brim. The brim came down at the rear to protect the back of the neck, projected forward over the forehead and was worked into a complex shape at the sides, with downward pointing folds affording some lateral protection to the face. A long plume was sometimes attached to this type of helmet. The need for unimpeded vision and good hearing was particularly acute for cavalrymen, therefore this type of helmet was used primarily by mounted troops. It was modelled on the shape of a folded-down Boeotian variant of the petasos, a type of Greek sun hat, usually made of felt.

This type of helmet was beaten from a single sheet of bronze using a helmet-shaped "former," one of which, made of limestone, is extant. An excellently preserved example of this type of helmet, now in the Ashmolean Museum, was recovered from the Tigris River in Iraq. It may have belonged to one of Alexander the Great's cavalrymen. In Late Hellenistic times the Boeotian helmet evolved into a type with a taller, more conical skull and often a reduced brim.