Object Title

Sallet

Sallet

Date

1450-1460

Object Number

IV.429

Provenance

Transferred from the Rotunda Museum of Artillery at Woolwich, England, in 1927. Originally from Rhodes, via Lefroy, in 1867.

Physical Description

Formed of one piece, with a single sight and deep brim and short tail. The skull is low and rounded, with a sharp bump at the rear, and is embossed with a sharp medial ridge running the full length of the helmet, rising over the skull in a low comb. The brim flares only slightly. The line formed by the change of angle between it and the skull is almost level all round, rising only at the front where it runs into the angle of the flange above the sight. The sight is stepped, with its lower edge embossed forwards, producing a concave section in the front of the brim. The lower edge is almost level, dipping down slightly at either side, and has a very narrow, flattened, outward turn over wire. The comb is pierced at the centre with a small, transverse slot, which tapers to a hole on the inside of the skull. Around the base of the skull is a line of six rivets for the attachment of a lining.

Materials

Ferrous metal

Dimensions

HelmetDepth238 mm
HelmetDepth332 mm
HelmetHeight260 mm
HelmetWeight3001 g
HelmetWidth194 mm
HelmetWidth364 mm

Inscriptions and Marks

Accession number
Rotunda number, MA 2278.		At the lower left rear of the brim

Associations

Bibliographic References

Official Catalogue of the Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda, London, 1874: 139, no. 2278

Official Catalogue of the Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda, Woolwich, London, 1889: 149, no. 16.209

G F Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms, lONDON, 1920, II: 26, fig. 369

C J ffoulkes, 'Armour from the Rotunda, Woolwich, Transferred to the Armouries of the Tower, 1927' Archaeologia LXXVII 1927: 61-72 pl. 13.1

C J ffoulkes, Rotunda Museum, Apollo, 1928, 8.43: 20, 22

Claude Blair, European Armour, B T Batsford Ltd, London, 1958: 200-1.

A R Dufty and W Reid, European Armour in the Tower of London, 1968, plate LXXIX a

H M Curtis, 2,500 years of European helmets. Beinfield, North Hollywood, 1978: 110-11

W J Karcheski Jr and T Richardson, The medieval armour from Rhodes, Leeds, Royal Armouries 2000: no. 2.1

C. Paggiarino, The Royal Armouries, masterpieces of medieval and renaissance arms and armour, Milan, 2011, volume 1

Notes

This sallet is comparable with a number of pieces made in southern Germany, for example, Metropolitan Museum no. 29.150.12. and another in Smederevo Museum, Serbia. A third similar example was excavated from the walls of Constantinople which fell in1453 (possibly now in the Askeri Museum, Istanbul)

Metallurgy Report: A detached flake from the inside was examined. The microstructure contains pearlite, in varying proportions, and ferrite, with very little visible slag, with about 0.6%C. This steel has been worked above the critical range, then allowed to cool slowly

Information

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