Help with Helmet Identification
 

Dear forum members on the Russian forum discussing helmet. I wrote on the Russian forum your thoughts about this helmet. But I would like to hear the opinion of the forum, the dating of the helmet and the region in which it is produced.

No one has any opinions ???

Based on decoration - typical Persian late Qajar period, late 19th century. relatively crude work, and could be 20th c.

parade armour, split ring maille rather than riveted. OK for parades, but would be not as good protection in battle.

interestingly, late 19th c. battle of omdurman, the mahdi's troops had quite a few in older maille armour, it offered little protection against the lances and swords of the british cavalry (and of course none against their firearms). the armour was noted as being brittle with age and it shattered when struck with an edged weapon which just breezed thru and zapped the mahdiist (per churchill's memoirs, he participated in the battle and the charge of the 21st lancers, but used a mauser automatic pistol, not a sword).

Khula Khud
 

Salaams mahratt~

Please see http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...lmet&FORM=IGRE

It looks like a Qajar Dynasty helmet ...This period covers right up to the 1920s when a lot of this stuff was parade armour...

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

Thank you, my friends. I have no doubt that this late Qajar Dynasty helmet 19- early 20th century. It was important to know your opinion. Owner helmet naively believes that this unique helmet 18th century now, I hope he will understand what is wrong :)

Butted mail actually, but you can not use the fact that a helmet has butted mail as the only identifier as mail can easily be added at a later date to an older helmet, you have to look at the workmanship etc.


I have not read anything about the armor worn by Sudanese fighters being useless against swords, only that it was not any good against firearms (of course). Most mail that I have seen would have offered questionable protection against a lance being driven into it from a mounted soldier.

i did mean butted maile of course. the rest of my post was a mixed and well mentally edited mix of sources that peculated out of my brain possibly a bit mixed up.

wilkinson steel at the time made reference to egyptians wearing 'split ring' maile which was inferior to riveted maile and would fracture on impact. i assume that that in fact they also were referring to butted maile, a 360 degree ring, rather than the 720 degree spiral 'split rings' used for keys nowadays.

another period ref. notes the sudanese used butted and riveted, of various quality, and also used captured egyptian armour as well as from other arab sources. it mentioned 10 kilos of rings for butted maile would be required for a sudanese hauberk & they cost £25 unassembled. ;) a small fortune at the time. the split rings used to make butted maile were bought from outside the sudan.

wilkinson also mentioned that they made maile vests for a number of british officers who wore them in the battle and noted that while they would not stop bullets, or a spear or sword thrust they would protect against slashes and grazing cuts and light protection against shell fragments. uniform jackets were also available with hardened steel plates sewn in brigandine fashion up to and including ww1.

another ref. i read from 2005 mentioned some armour captured at omdurman was worn fragile from age, corrosion, cleaning and use, being expensive i imagined it may have been passed down over generations slowly wearing away, and being worn mainly for ceremonial and parades. they referenced robinson's 'oriental arms and armour'. i imagine the padded gambesons worn under the sudanese chain maile armour were more protection, much like the russian great coats the brits found difficult to penetrate with their swords at the crimea.