Lokrume helmet fragment
The Lokrume helmet fragment
1907 drawing of the fragment
Material	Iron, silver, niello
Created	c. tenth century
Discovered	Lokrume, Gotland, Sweden
Present location	Gotland Museum
Registration	GF B 1683

The Lokrume helmet fragment is a decorated eyebrow piece from a Viking Age helmet. It is made of iron, the surface of which is decorated with silver and niello that forms an interlaced pattern. Discovered in Lokrume, a small settlement on the Swedish island of Gotland, the fragment was first published in 1907 and is in the collection of the Gotland Museum.

The fragment is dated to around the tenth century AD, on the basis of its interlace pattern; similar designs appear on tenth-century swords. It is one of five Viking helmets to survive in any condition; the others are the Gjermundbu helmet from Norway, the Yarm helmet from England, the Tjele helmet fragment from Denmark, and a fragment from Kyiv. These are all examples of the "crested helmets" that entered use in Europe around the sixth century, and derive from the earlier Anglo-Saxon and Vendel Period helmets.

Description

The Lokrume fragment is the remnant of the eyebrow piece, and part of the nose guard, from a helmet.^[1][2][3] The fragment is 13.2 centimetres (5.2 in) wide.^[1][2][3] An iron core was either coated or inlaid with silver, which was itself inlaid with niello.^[1][4][5][3] The inlaid pattern stretches the width of the fragment, though much of the sinister portion is now lost. The pattern is symmetrical, patterned with intertwined bands and circles. Transverse bands further adorn the area around this pattern.^[6]

Discovery

The fragment was discovered in Lokrume,^[1] a small settlement on the Swedish island of Gotland. The circumstances of its discovery are otherwise unknown.^[6] It was first described in print in the academic journal Fornvännen in 1907; the two-sentence mention, which included a drawing, stated that the piece was found in Lokrume, and held in the collection of Visby Fornsal—now known as the Gotland Museum.^[1] As of 2024 the fragment remains at the museum, where it is catalogued as GF B 1683.^[7][8]

Typology

The reconstructed pattern from the fragment

The fragment's style of interlaced pattern dates to around the tenth century AD; similar patterns appear on tenth-century swords, including examples from Norway and one found near Lipiany in Poland.^[6][9] This places the fragment squarely within the Viking Age, which lasted from the end of the eighth century to the middle of the eleventh.^[6][10]

Remains of only four other Viking Age helmets (only two of which are from Scandinavia) are known: the Gjermundbu helmet from Norway and the Yarm helmet from England, as well as the Tjele helmet fragment from Denmark, and a fragment from Kyiv.^{[11][12][13][14]} The Lokrume piece was the first of these to be identified;^[1] the Tjele fragment was discovered in 1850, but mistaken for a saddle mounting until 1984.^[11][15] Like the other four, the Lokrume helmet appears to have been a descendant of the earlier Vendel Period and Anglo-Saxon helmets from Scandinavia and England, respectfully, and the final iteration of the "crested helmets" that appeared in Europe around the sixth century.^[16][17][18]

References

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lokrume helmet fragment.

• Boye, Vilhelm (1858). "To fund af smedeværktöi fra den sidste hedenske tid i Danmark". Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (in Danish): 191–200, pl. II–IV.
• Bruce-Mitford, Rupert (1978). The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Volume 2: Arms, Armour and Regalia. London: British Museum Publications. ISBN 978-0-7141-1331-9.
• Caple, Chris (2 July 2020). "The Yarm Helmet" (PDF). Medieval Archaeology. 64: 31–64. doi:10.1080/00766097.2020.1755126. S2CID 221055800.
• Grieg, Sigurd (1947). Gjermundbufunnet: En høvdingegrav fra 900-årene fra Ringerike. Norske Oldfunn (in Norwegian). Vol. VIII. Oslo: Bergen. OCLC 984069139.
• "Hjälm, del av" [Helmet, part of]. Gotlands Museum (in Swedish). Retrieved 5 January 2024.
• Hjardar, Kim & Vike, Vegard (2016). Vikings at War. Oxford: Casemate Publishers. ISBN 978-1-61200-403-7.
• Lindqvist, Sune (1925). "Vendelhjälmarnas ursprung" [The Origin of the Vendel Helmets] (PDF). Fornvännen (in Swedish). 20: 181–207. ISSN 0015-7813.
• Munksgaard, Elisabeth (1984). "A Viking Age Smith, his Tools and his Stock-in-trade". Offa. 41: 85–89. ISSN 0078-3714.
• Steuer, Heiko (1987). "Helm und Ringschwert: Prunkbewaffnung und Rangabzeichen germanischer Krieger". In Häßler, Hans-Jürgen (ed.). Studien zur Sachsenforschung (in German). Vol. 6. Hildesheim: Lax. pp. 189–236. ISBN 978-3-7848-1617-3.
• Thunmark-Nylén, Lena (1998). Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands (II): Typentafeln (in German). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. ISBN 978-91-7402-287-2.
• Thunmark-Nylén, Lena (2000b). Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands (IV:2): Katalog (in German). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. ISBN 978-91-7402-308-4.
• Thunmark-Nylén, Lena (2000c). Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands (IV:3): Katalog (in German). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. ISBN 978-91-7402-309-1.
• Thunmark-Nylén, Lena (2006a). Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands (III:1): Text (in German). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. ISBN 978-91-7402-354-1.
• Tweddle, Dominic (1992). The Anglian Helmet from 16–22 Coppergate (PDF). The Archaeology of York. Vol. 17/8. London: Council for British Archaeology. ISBN 1-872414-19-2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2017.
• "Ur främmande samlingar: 2" [From foreign collections: 2] (PDF). Fornvännen (in Swedish). 2: 205–208. 1907. ISSN 0015-7813.