Mycenaean Culture (C.1600–C.1100 BC), The Bronze Age Collapse Or Greek Dark Ages (C.1100–C.750 BC), The Archaic Period (C.750–C.500 BC), The Hellenistic Period (323–146 BC)/Alamy
A brief history of the ancient Greek helmet, which was taken from Troy by Odysseus' grandfather.
When we think about ancient heroes, like the characters from the Iliad and the Odyssey, we often imagine them sporting crested bronze helmets. This image has been cemented in our minds, thanks to ancient art and paintings from various cultures around the world, especially the Greeks. However, the reality is that the ancient Greeks wore various types of body armour. For example, archeologists are very familiar with helmets made from boars’ tusks, some of which have been exceptionally well preserved over the centuries.
In the Iliad,i
And Meriones gave to Odysseus a bow and a quiver and a sword, and about his head he set a helm wrought of hide, and with many a tight-stretched thong was it made stiff within, while without the white teeth of a boar of gleaming tusks were set thick on this side and that well and cunningly, and within was fixed a lining of felt. This cap Autolycus on a time stole out of Eleon …
Red-figure vase painting depicting Odysseus wearing a helmet made from boar's tusks, visiting Eumaeus/Wikimedia Commons.
Thus, the helmet in question was stolen by Odysseus’s maternal grandfather, Autolycus, who was the son of the Olympian Hermes himself. Hermes, the patron god of merchants, thieves, and travellers passed his skills and parental endorsement on to Autolycus, and so he was very good at lying and stealing. Odysseus’s helmet was an ancient item that came into his possession through his grandfather, but no one knows how old it was at the time when his grandfather stole it.
Fragment Of A 13th Century B.C. Mural From Orchomenos Depicting Warrior Goddess, In The Cult Centre Of Mycenae In Boar Tusk Helmet With A Griffin/Alamy
Leather helmets with plates made from boars’ tusks, intended to protect the wearer from enemy blows, were used by Cypro-Minoan and Mycenaean warriors at least 300 years before the Trojan War. A wall drawing, dating back to between the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BCE and discovered during excavations of the Minoan city Akrotiri, depicted warriors wearing helmets with tusks. It is possible that the Achaeans, who invaded the Minoan kingdom around 1450 BCE, when it lay in ruins after the catastrophic explosion of Santorini volcano eruption, an earthquake, and a tsunami hitting Crete, got the idea of these helmets from that place. But this wasn’t the only thing the Mycenaean civilization adopted from the Minoans.i
A fresco from the 17th to 16th centuries BC from the excavations of the Minoan city of Akrotiri is the oldest known image of helmets with boar tusks as a protective coating/Wikimedia Commons
It is quite astonishing that Crete at the peak of its cultural and technological prime, in the Bronze Age, was using bone. As is so often the case, there is quite a simple explanation for an unusual innovation. Bronze was widely used in the military but it was, at the same time, quite expensive. Therefore, more affordable materials, which would also not compromise performance, were used to the greatest possible extent. For example, Mycenaean civilizations were even comfortable using arrows with flint arrowheads, which can be seen in Greek archeological museums today. This practice may seem quite primitive and straight out of the Stone Age, but they’d not heard of that. Besides, it worked brilliantly.
The story of the helmet is very similar. The noble and rich warriors, both Mycenaean and Greek, naturally wore leather helmets with protective bronze plates. However, the clever Odysseus, despite being a hero, held a relatively low social position as the ruler of the small and unimportant island of Ithaca in the north. He was no match for Agamemnon, who not only led the invasion of Troy but was the Anaxi
Illustration Of Mycenaean Warrior Dressed In Armour Made Of Bronze Plates Joined By Leather Straps. The Mycenaean Was The Ancient Greek Civilisation From 1600 To 1100 BC/Alamy
Armour made from boars’ tusks quite possibly did not look as glamorous and expensive as that made from bronze, but it did the job of protecting the warriors’ heads just as well. In fact, tusk dentin has a hardness of 58.9 kilogram-force/square mm and tin bronze has around 40–60 kilogram-force/square mm, depending on the composition of the alloy. Also, there are plenty of wild boar in Greece even today, and in Mycenaean times, there were even more. However, hunting these big beasts using spears was a difficult and dangerous task, but when were warriors and heroes ever fazed by these mere difficulties?
It required the tasks of twelve to fourteen boars to make one helmet. The tasks were filed to remove the sharp parts and they were then split lengthwise. Tusks split in this way were easily divided into layers. Holes were then drilled in the plates, and they were sewn onto the leather cap of the helmet base either in overlapping rows or next to each other, not leaving any gaps. Once the lining and the belts were added, the helmet was ready for acts of valor!