[European History] Did Vikings have ventilated helmets?

by CanHeWrite

Hi AskHistorians, I've recently been trying to put together a historically accurate Viking costume and I know a guy who is selling what he claims to be a Viking era model helmet.

https://i.imgur.com/arUtzzH.jpg

I believe it looks more like English early-crusader era, but I'm no expert. Does this helmet look anything like a Viking would have worn?

Thanks

Platypuskeeper

Vikings may not have used metal helmets to a very high extent at all. Considering the amount of weapons (and stuff, and animals) that followed rich/important owners into their graves in Scandinavian late-Iron Age and Viking Age graves, there's surprisingly few helmets. I mean almost zero. -There's only one partially-reconstructed Viking Age helmet from Scandinavia, the Gjermundbu helmet. Then there's a handful of fragments from various places.

If you include the Vendel Age (~550-800) there's four more: One from a grave at Ultuna and three from the graves at Vendel/Valsgärde which named the age. There are a number of Vendel Age fragments too, including a handful of those characteristic eyebrow-ridges; From Högbro, Lokrume, and an unknown location on Gotland, and Tjele in Denmark. (Lokrume fragment may be Viking Age)

Much has been said about their resemblance to the roughly contemporary Anglo-Saxon helmet from Sutton Hoo in England. Not quite as much has been said about the Coppergate Helmet from York, (here's one article though) but it's also in that group.

So despite there being enough swords and spearheads for them to have created classification systems for them, there's only a half-dozen Viking Age helmet fragments preserved, and only one that's somewhat complete. One simple explanation would be that Vikings rarely wore helmets, or rarely used metal ones if they did. It's not an uncommon opinion among Scandinavian archaeologists. On the other hand, helmets are not infrequent in the skaldic literature and on runestone images. The Rällinge statue, frequently assumed to be Freyr (although really only because he's got an erection) dates from the Viking Age and seems to have a conical, pointy helmet. Which could've been similar to contemporary nasal helmets seen for instance on the Bayeux tapestry.

So there's no Viking Age Scandinavian original that looks anything much like that helmet you linked. There are people selling reproductions of the Gjermundbu and other helmets mentioned here (with various amounts of extrapolation). But as I said, nobody could really fault you for not having a helmet either.