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32-402: Although it was found shattered into thousands of pieces and is now heavily corroded, the helmet still bears evidence of its original finely decorated design. It was plated with silver-gilt and decorated with images of goddesses and equestrian scenes. It would have been used by a Roman auxiliary cavalryman for displays and possibly in battle. The identity of the owner is not known but the helmet

64-537: A base of sterling silver coated or plated on all significant surfaces with gold, or gold alloy of not less than 10- karat fineness, that is of reasonable durability and a minimum thickness throughout equivalent to two and one half ( 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 ) microns (or approximately 100 ⁄ 1000000 ths of an inch) of fine gold." Silver objects could be gilded at any point, not just when first made, and items regularly handled, such as toilet service sets for dressing-tables or tableware, often needed regilding after

96-495: A few years, as the gold began to wear off. In 18th century London two different silversmiths charged 3 shillings per ounce of silver for an initial gilding, and 1 shilling and 9 pence per ounce for regilding. Often only the interior of cups was gilded, perhaps from concern at the chemical compounds used to clean tarnish from silver. This is called parcel-gilt . Fully silver-gilt items are visually indistinguishable from gold, and were no doubt often thought to be solid gold. When

128-449: A largely agricultural people who had few strongly defended sites or signs of centralised government. They appear to have been a federation of smaller, self-governing tribal groups. From the beginning of the 1st century, they began to produce inscribed coins: almost all featured two names, and one series had three, suggesting they had multiple rulers. The names on the earliest coins are so abbreviated as to be unidentifiable. Later coins feature

160-484: A possibly Middle Eastern figure holding a large cornucopia , and a Roman helmet and shield below. The helmet was found along with some 5,296 Iron Age and Roman coins mostly dating to AD 20/30–50, the largest assemblage of Iron Age coins ever found in Britain. They had been buried at what appears to have been a pre-Roman shrine where large-scale animal slaughtering had taken place; nearly 7,000 bone fragments were also found at

192-642: A variety of gilding techniques, and a distinctive depletion gilding technique was developed by the Incas in Pre-Columbian South America . "Overlaying" or folding or hammering on gold foil or gold leaf is mentioned in Homer 's Odyssey (Bk vi, 232), and fire-gilding with mercury dates to at least the 4th century BC, and was the most common method until the Early Modern period at least, though dangerous for

224-808: A £650,000 grant), the Art Fund and other trusts and charities. The helmet was valued at £300,000; under the terms of the Treasure Act , Ken Wallace and the landowner were each awarded £150,000. The helmet was put on permanent public display at the end of January 2012 at the Harborough Museum in Market Harborough, nine miles from the site where the hoard was found, alongside other objects found at Hallaton. Silver-gilt Silver-gilt or gilded/gilt silver , sometimes known in American English by

256-615: Is an alternative for the usual term silver-gilt. It is a French word which came into use in the English language, mostly in America, in the 19th century, and is rare in British English . "Vermeil" can also refer to gilt bronze , an even less costly alternative construction material than silver. The US Code of Federal Regulations 16, Part 23.4 defines vermeil thus: "An industry product may be described or marked as 'vermeil' if it consists of

288-484: Is much heavier than even lead and is easily scratched and bent). For objects that have intricate detail like monstrances , gilding greatly reduces the need for cleaning and polishing, and so reduces the risk of damage. Ungilded silver would suffer oxidation and need frequent polishing; gold does not oxidize at all. The "gold" threads used in embroidered goldwork are normally also silver-gilt. Silver-gilt objects have been made since ancient times across Eurasia , using

320-938: The Coritani , and the Corieltavi ) were a Celtic tribe living in Britain prior to the Roman conquest , and thereafter a civitas of Roman Britain . Their territory was in what is now the English East Midlands . They were bordered by the Brigantes to the north, the Cornovii to the west, the Dobunni and Catuvellauni to the south, and the Iceni to the east. Their capital was called Ratae Corieltauvorum , known today as Leicester . The Corieltauvi were

352-469: The East Midlands stretching from Northamptonshire to Lincolnshire . It is very unusual to find a helmet of this type on a native ceremonial site. It was probably made between 25 and 50 AD, close to the date of the conquest of Britain in 43 AD; this makes it one of the earliest Roman helmets ever found in Britain. Other British examples of later date were found in isolation away from settlements, as in

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384-516: The English Commonwealth sold the Crown Jewels of England after the execution of Charles I they were disappointed in the medieval "Queen Edith's Crowne, formerly thought to be of massy gold, but upon trial found to be of silver gilt", which was valued at only £16, compared to £1,110 for the "imperial crowne". The English Gothic Revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott was concerned by

416-599: The French term vermeil , is silver (either pure or sterling ) which has been gilded . Most large objects made in goldsmithing that appear to be gold are actually silver-gilt; for example most sporting trophies (including medals such as the gold medals awarded in all Olympic Games after 1912) and many crown jewels are silver-gilt objects. Apart from the raw materials being much less expensive to acquire than solid gold of any karat , large silver-gilt objects are also noticeably lighter if lifted, as well as more durable (gold

448-524: The Magna Mater or "Great Mother" whose image was used to promote the values of the Augustan period a few decades after the helmet was deposited. However, the depiction has a number of features that are more in common with funerary art. The ear guards are in the shape of silver ears, and the neckguard is decorated with a scrolling leaf pattern. Six detached cheekpieces were found within the helmet bowl along with

480-613: The Ravenna Cosmography gives the name of their capital, in apparently corrupt form, as Rate Corion Eltavori , and an inscribed tile found in Churchover calls the administrative district Civitas Corieltauvorum , indicating that the true form should be Corieltauvi . Manley Pope, author of an early English translation of the Welsh chronicle Brut y Brenhinedd , associated the Coritani of

512-733: The Corieltavi have been unearthed in Llangoed on Anglesey in Wales; fifteen gold staters were found by metal detectorists between July 2021 and March 2022. There is little evidence that the Corieltauvi offered resistance to Roman rule : Ratae was captured c. AD 44, and it may have had a Roman garrison. The Fosse Way , a Roman road , passed through their territory. Their name appears as Coritani and Coritavi in Ptolemy 's 2nd century Geography . However,

544-479: The Hallaton Fieldwork Group had found fragments of Roman pottery on a hill near Hallaton in 2000. He visited the site with a second-hand metal detector late one afternoon and found about 200 coins, which had been buried in a series of small pits dug into the clay. He also found another artifact, which he left in the ground overnight. The following day he returned to examine his discovery and found it that it

576-553: The Roman writers with the magical race called the Coraniaid in the medieval Welsh tale Lludd and Llevelys , however this is not supported by modern historical linguistics. The name has been adopted by the athletics club, Leicester Coritanian A.C. A detectorist found a small figure of a woman riding a bull in a field in Barnetby le Wold , Lincolnshire in 2016. The piece was handed over to

608-632: The cases of the Guisborough Helmet and Crosby Garrett Helmet , or on Roman sites, as with the Newstead Helmet . Various suggestions have been put forward as to why the helmet ended up at Hallaton; it may have been owned by a Briton who served in the Roman cavalry, it may have been a diplomatic gift from the Romans or it may have been captured in war. According to Dr Jeremy Hill of the British Museum,

640-514: The disintegrated remains of a seventh, although only two would have been needed. Hinges were also found, as was the pin of one cheekpiece, which had been bent. It may have been forcibly removed or possibly sustained damage at a later date, perhaps from a plough. It is unclear why there were so many cheekpieces accompanying the helmet; it is possible that they may all have been used on the same helmet to customise its appearance on different occasions, or alternatively they may have been intended as spares in

672-524: The effects of time had shattered the helmet into thousands of pieces, most of which were smaller than the nail on a person's little finger. The reconstructed and conserved helmet was unveiled in January 2012. Leicester County Council was able to raise £1 million to buy the entire hoard and pay for the conservation of the helmet, with the assistance of donations from the Heritage Lottery Fund (which gave

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704-412: The event of damage. The surviving cheekpieces are very elaborate. Five of the cheekpieces show equestrian scenes; one depicts the triumph of a Roman emperor on horseback, holding his arm in the air as he is crowned with a laurel wreath by the goddess Victoria (Victory). A cowering barbarian is depicted below being trampled by the hooves of the emperor's horse. Another less well-preserved cheekpiece depicts

736-440: The first explanation is the most likely: "Here you probably have a situation where local Britons are fighting on the Roman side." The Roman cavalry at this time was mostly recruited from native allies, not Italians, suggesting that Britons fought alongside the Romans as they carried out their conquest of Britain. The helmet was discovered by 71-year-old Ken Wallace, a retired teacher and amateur archaeologist. He and other members of

768-634: The helmet bowl descended to form a neckguard. As is the case with other Roman cavalry helmets, the Hallaton Helmet was very ornately decorated. The closest parallel to the Hallaton Helmet in terms of overall appearance is a helmet found in Xanten-Wardt in Germany which, like the Hallaton example, is made of silver-gilded iron with a wreath on the crown, a central figure on the browguard and a garland of flowers on

800-507: The morality of this. Gilding of the interior only he accepted, but with all-over gilding "we ... reach the actual boundary of truth and falsehood; and I am convinced that if we adopt this custom we overstep it.... why make our gift look more costly than it is? We increase its beauty, but it is at the sacrifice of truth." Indeed, some Early Medieval silver-gilt Celtic brooches had compartments apparently for small lead weights to aid such deception. Corieltauvi The Corieltauvi (also

832-700: The name of Volisios , apparently the paramount king of the region, together with names of three presumed sub-kings, Dumnocoveros , Dumnovellaunus and Cartivelios , in three series minted ca. 45 AD. The Corieltauvi had an important mint, and possibly a tribal centre, at Sleaford . The discovery in 2000 of the Hallaton Treasure more than doubled the total number of Corieltauvian coins previously recorded. In 2014 26 gold and silver Corieltauvian coins were found in Reynard's Kitchen Cave in Derbyshire . Coins attributed to

864-419: The neckguard. A number of similar features have survived on the Hallaton Helmet. Its bowl is decorated with laurel wreaths while the scalloped browguard is edged with elaborate cabling. In the centre of the browguard is the (now heavily damaged) bust of a woman flanked by repoussé lions. Her identity is unclear, but she may have been an empress or goddess. The iconography is reminiscent of depictions of Cybele ,

896-471: The site, 97 per cent of which were from pigs. Many appear to have been buried without the meat being eaten, suggesting that they had been used as offerings. The site is located on a hilltop which appears to have been encircled by a boundary ditch and palisade, with a possible processional way leading up to it. In Roman times it would have been located in the territory of the Corieltauvi , who inhabited an area of

928-527: The wars of the Greeks and Trojans. It is the only Roman helmet ever found in Britain that still has most of its silver-gilt plating attached. The helmet would originally have had two cheekpieces attached via holes in front of its ear guards. It has a prominent browguard, the shape of which is similar to that of the 3rd-century Guisborough Helmet , discovered in 1864 near Guisborough in Redcar and Cleveland . The rear of

960-474: The workers and often caused blindness among French artisans who refined the technique in the 18th century. Today electroplating is the most commonly used method: it involves no mercury and is therefore much safer. Keum-boo is a special Korean technique of silver-gilding, using depletion gilding. In China gilt-bronze , also known as ormolu , was more common. Vermeil ( / ˈ v ɜːr m ɪ l / or / v ər ˈ m eɪ / ; French: [vɛʁˈmɛj] )

992-710: Was a silver ear. He reported the find to Leicestershire's county archaeologist, who called in the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) to excavate the site. The dig took place in the spring of 2003. The helmet was too fragile to be excavated in situ so it was removed within a block of earth held together with plaster of Paris . It was taken to the British Museum in London for conservation, which took nine years of work by conservator Marilyn Hockey and her colleagues Fleur Shearman and Duygu Çamurcuoğlu. Corrosion and

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1024-756: Was discovered on a native British ceremonial site, buried alongside thousands of Iron Age British and Roman coins. It is possible that the helmet was owned by a Briton who fought alongside the Romans during the Roman conquest of Britain . The helmet is an example of a three-piece Roman ceremonial cavalry helmet, made of sheet iron covered with silver sheet and partly decorated with gold leaf . Such helmets were worn by Roman auxiliary cavalrymen in displays known as hippika gymnasia and may also have been worn in battle, despite their relative thinness and lavish decoration. Horses and riders wore lavishly decorated clothes, armour and plumes while performing feats of horsemanship and re-enacting historical and legendary battles, such as

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