Vendel Helm with Pressblech: Top Viewby *royaloakarmoury

Artisan Crafts / Metal Work

This is a helmet based on surviving Vendel and Valsgärde helmets of the 7th century. Such a helmet would have been part of a splendid panoply of richly decorated arms, armour and fittings worn and used by the highest members of a powerful warrior elite. The helmet is enriched with decorative and figurative pressblech scenes of a mythological nature and is topped by a stylized boar crest, which may have been a talismanic reference to the golden boar of the Germanic war god Freyr.

Our version is based primarily on the Vendel 12 and Valsgärde 8 finds, with overall form and nasal shape following the former and crest, brow and mail based on the latter. Pressblech decoration is closely replicated from existing matrixes, though the order of application is arbitrary.

Despite the delicacy of its decoration, this is a sturdily built helmet made with a skull of 16 gauge and nasal of 14 gauge steel. The abundance of reeded brass trim and brass encased edges adds extra weight and rigidity, as does the layer of tinned copper pressblech plates.

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