Шлем из Гьёрмундбю. Миниатюра

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Helmet from Gjermundby
The helmet from Görmundby is the only and unique representative of Viking helmets, and no complete analogues have been found for this period. Its 17 fragments, along with an S-type sword with the remains of a sheath, chainmail, spear and arrowheads, battle axes, riding equipment, and a large number of other accompanying items, were discovered in 1943 in the burial (cremation) of a noble Scandinavian warrior in the Norwegian town of Hermundby.
The helmet dates back to the 9th-10th centuries and is a typical representative of the Spangenhelm, but with its own peculiarities.
The shape of the find is cylindrical and hemispherical with a double cross-shaped frame in the centre of which a spire is attached (from the bottom - one long plate with a square in the centre, which runs in the middle from the front to the back of the head and 2 short ones that run from the edges to the centre; on the top - the same correspondence, but the plates have a convex shape, which makes the helmet more durable, the top and bottom of the frame are connected with long rivets), the torso consists of four supportive spherical fragments, the height of the helmet without the spire and half mask is 15 cm, the helmet profile is oval 16.5 cm by 20 cm. The design feature is that the supportive fragments are not attached directly to the cross-shaped frame, but are simply inserted between its parts, and riveted only to the lower hoop and the square in the centre of the frame, the hoop itself is 5.6 cm high, and a stiffener is embossed at a distance of 1 cm from the top of the crown. The metal thickness of the helmet is 1-1.5 mm. A half-mask about 10 cm high and 3-1.5 mm thick with notches that act as a decor is attached to the hoop with 5 rivets (analogues include half-masks from Locrum, Thile, the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv, and a visual aid from Gevinge). Also, one of the fragments of the crown has 2 small rings with a distance of 3 cm between them, which, due to their size and location, are unlikely to have been used to attach a barrette, but they could have been used to attach a leather patch, which can be traced in metal in helmets of the previous Viking era - the Wendel era of the mid-6th - late 8th centuries (for example, a helmet from Sutton Hoo and Wendel 14).
The helmet from Hermundby certainly imitates the rich and luxuriously decorated Wendel helmets in its shape and features, but it does not look so expensive in comparison with its predecessors, which is explained by changes in barbarian society - now the army and life in general are becoming more democratised, The konungs and noble warriors no longer concentrate in their hands the finances that would be enough to buy masterpiece helmets, and there are few craftsmen who can make them, all this can be seen in the example of our exhibit.
My miniature differs from the original, namely: there is no spire, the upper plates of the frame are flat, the lower frame is made in one piece, the support segments are not riveted to the central sub-square on the frame, the helmet has a round profile and there is a copper decoration above the half-mask. This can be explained by the fact that the helmet from Hermundby was not the only one in Scandinavia, there were many of them, but only this one has survived to this day. Everything else is made as close to the original as possible.
Sources:
Frans-Arne H. Stylegar, Ragnar Løken Børsheim "Gjermundbufunnet - en småkonges grav med østlig tilsnitt på Ringerike". VIKING, Norsk Arkeologisk Årbok. Vol: LXXXV (2021), 89-122. URL: https://doi.org/10.5617/viking.9089.

Kainov S.Y. "Helmet from Gjermundbu". URL: http://asgard.tgorod.ru/libri.php3?cont=_sk3

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