According to archaeologists, the horned 'Viking' helmets were made by a different civilization

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Bronze Age leaders wore these magnificent helmets as status symbols.

 

Vikings may have been inspired to wear bull horns on their helmets by two bronze helmets ornamented with bull-like, curvy horns, even though there is no proof that they did.

 

More likely, the two helmets symbolized the increasing power of Scandinavian rulers in the Bronze Age.

 

The helmets were found in a swamp near the town of Vikso (sometimes written Vekso) in eastern Denmark, a few miles northwest of Copenhagen, in 1942 by a worker chopping peat for fuel. While some archaeologists speculated that the items could date back to the Nordic Bronze Age, which spanned roughly from 1750 BCE to 500 BCE, no definitive date could be assigned to them until today. A birch tar plug on one of the horns was dated using radiocarbon methods by the current study's researchers.

 

Helle Vandkilde, a Danish archaeologist at Aarhus University, remarked, "For many years in popular culture, people linked the Viks helmets with the Vikings." "But in reality, it's a complete hoax. The horned motif can be traced all the way back to the ancient Near East during the Bronze Age."

 

In a new study, Vandkilde and her colleagues found that the helmets were placed in the bog around 900 BC, nearly three thousand years before the Vikings or the Norse occupied the region.

 

As a result, researchers believe that the helmets date back to when European archaeologists believed regular trade in metals and foreign ideas was becoming commonplace across Europe and that these concepts were affecting Indigenous civilizations.

 

Wearing horn-rimmed headgear

 

According to the Danish Ministry of Culture, a laborer harvesting peat for fuel discovered broken fragments of the helmets in 1942.

 

Initially, the man who found the muddy helmet fragments thought they were pieces of buried trash, so he threw them away. Eventually, a foreman spotted the bits and put them in a shed for further study. Two metal helmets ornamented with curving horns were among the "buried rubbish" discovered by National Museum of Denmark archaeologists. The discovery of a wooden slab that one of the helmets appeared to stand on during the peat pit excavation further supports the theory that they were intentionally dumped in the bog.

 

Research has shown that the wooden slab may have been placed in the bog earlier than the helmets, even though metal cannot be securely dated. One of Vandkilde's coworkers didn't notice the birch tar on one of the horns until 2019 when she was preparing to take fresh photos of the helmets at the National Museum of Denmark.

 

Vandkilde added that she discovered that the horns contained primary organic material and contacted a colleague at the National Museum who was in charge of the collection. They agreed to send a sample for absolute dating.

 

It was previously only possible to learn about the helmets based on their typology, which included the style they were built in and any symbols they were decorated with. An alternative method for pinpointing the origins of organic materials is based on the decay of the radioactive isotope carbon 14. "This method allowed us to pinpoint when the helmets were made and speculate on what they were used for," she explained.

 

Even if we can't have absolute dates, such as those provided by carbon 14, "typology is quite often a good starting step," Vandkilde added. With this new date, we know that the helmets were placed in the bog, perhaps by someone standing on a wooden platform, in approximately 900 BC.

 

representation of the sun's power

 

Along with their large, prominent horned heads and bird-like eyes and beaks, the Vik's helmets are also decorated with symbols meant to seem like birds of prey, including plumage that has since deteriorated, and each helmet may also have had a mane of horsehair.

 

Because of similar imagery found elsewhere throughout Europe, including Sardinia and southwest Spain, the bull's horns and the bird's talons were likely symbols of the sun. "It's not coincidental—there must have been some sort of relationship there," Vandkilde remarked.

 

According to the researchers, a sea route used by seafaring Phoenicians for trade after about 1000 B.C. may have brought the symbology of sun worship to Scandinavia from the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coast. This route was "independent of the otherwise flourishing transalpine trading route."

 

War in Bronze Age Scandinavia was typically fought without or with only the most basic helmets. No evidence exists that the Viks helmets were ever employed for that purpose. Vandkilde said that they had never been put to the test in battle.

 

As the region became more politicized and centralized, authorities may have worn the helmets as a show of authority, she said.

 

Newly-dated Vik's helmets "really suit [the centralization and importance of political leadership]," she said. "There is evidence of this, and our new dating complements this very well." In addition, religious beliefs and inventive qualities, such as the horns, must have been employed by those leaders to gain control."

Reference : https://www.livescience.com/horned-viking-helmets-from-different-civilization

Image source : https://pixabay.com/id/vectors/helm-viking-noorman-sejarah-kayu-3168149/

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