Two spectacular bronze horned helmets found in a peat lavatory within the small Danish city of Viksø didn’t belong to the Vikings, a brand new examine has discovered.
The helmets, which have been uncovered again in 1942, have been truly worn by a special civilisation in 900 BC, greater than 1,500 years earlier than the primary Vikings within the area, researchers imagine.
Now housed on the Nationwide Museum of Denmark, the helmets every have peculiar curved horns within the fashion of a bull and two massive domes made to appear like eyes.
The flowery fashion of the headgear might have made it attainable to connect feathers and even horse hair, so wearers might attend sacred rituals in fashion.
The researchers suppose the helmets have been doubtless imported from Mediterranean Europe, together with Sardinia and western Iberia, earlier than being buried in Viksø.
The helmets every have peculiar curved horns within the fashion of a bull and two massive domes made to appear like eyes
Artist’s impression of how the helmets might have seemed with adornments. The helmets have been much less more likely to have been worn for battle than as a part of spiritual rituals, specialists imagine
The helmets have been much less more likely to have been worn for battle than as a part of spiritual rituals, the specialists imagine, earlier than being deposited within the lavatory as choices to the gods.
When the helmets have been found in 1942, one was discovered resting on a wood tray of ash, suggesting they have been intentionally positioned fairly than mislaid.
The specialists say: ‘This pair of dual helmets communicates to the onlooker a unprecedented company, suggesting that their wearers wielded energy, whether or not perceived as god, human, or one thing in between.’
The brand new examine was led by archaeologists at Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus College in Denmark, who’ve based mostly their new findings on radiocarbon relationship outcomes.
Examine creator Heide Wrobel Nørgaard noticed black residue on one of many helmets and dated it to 900 BC – round 1,500 previous to the arrival of Vikings in Viksø.
One of many tell-tale clues was the frilly fashion of the helmets, which matches rock artwork and collectible figurines relationship to the identical interval on the the island of Sardinia.
In 1942, a peat cutter working within the Danish city of Viksø of discovered a bronze helmet in a lavatory. Subsequent excavations in the identical place revealed one other practically equivalent helmet
These generally depict warriors with practically equivalent horned helmets, in line with the examine authors.
‘There are big similarities between them,’ Nørgaard, based mostly at Moesgaard Museum’s Division of Archaeology, informed Science.
Due to their similarities with the Sardinian artworks, the specialists suppose bronze crafts and instruments have been exported alongside a commerce route from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.
This proposed commerce route went across the Atlantic coast, fairly than throughout land by the treacherous Alps, the workforce suppose.
‘These [helmets] are new indications metals have been traded additional than we thought,’ Aarhus College archaeologist Helle Vandkilde, the paper’s lead creator, informed Science.
Viksø is a small city between Ballerup and Ølstykke-Stenløse in Egedal, some 20 km northwest of Copenhagen, Denmark
Nevertheless, one knowledgeable who was not concerned with the examine is sceptical of this proposed commerce route.
Nicola Ialongo, an archaeologist at Georg August College, argues that the commerce route, if it existed, would have left similar-looking helmets in Belgium, France and the UK.
‘Even if you happen to assume seafarers went instantly from Sardinia to Scandinavia, they will need to have stopped alongside the best way,’ stated Ialongo.
The examine has been revealed within the journal Praehistorische Zeitschrift.