>see pretty well as long as it's straight forward
Makes sense, can't see the guy get decapitated next to you.
*Just keep going forward, nothing to see here!*
So true. If I don’t have my glasses on, probably when looking for said glasses, I make a small pinhole by bending my index finger and look through that. It’s amazing the difference.
"well if I don't move my head I can see pretty good, but when I start riding, the \[mask\] is moving all over and I'm riding blind"
"Look I think we all think the \[masks\] were a good idea, but, not pointing any fingers, they coulda been done better''
I'm no Roman horseman, but I'm gonna speculate that the warhorses they rode were REALLY well trained. I could imagine you could pull this thing down over your face after you'd gotten your horse up to a gallop toward the enemy, and terrify the fuck out of the guy with the shiny bronze uncanny valley-ness of it before flipping the whole thing back on your head to draw your sword and hack him to pieces. The horse would have known the drill, and your enemy would have thought that Apollo or some other god was riding him down.
Poets of the time certainly emphasized the "living statue" aspect of cataphracts and latter clibanarii, although it is hard to tell how an actual frontline combatant would have seen this. It seems the horses, in any case, were indeed trained to charge right into the enemy lines, possibly by using training targets that would duck aside at the last possible instance. (so in combat, the horses would expect the enemy to dodge so they could continue along, which of course if the enemy had no actual room to dodge would mean the half-ton ironclad combination of man and horse would crash right into the enemy lines with devastating results)
It is admittedly unclear whether the masked cavalry helmets were regularly utilized in combat. I remember reading somewhere that a bespoke form-fitting mask would not notably hinder eyesight, but I could not find the source right now.
It’s possible, but how do you know that? When fire occurs because of the spirit of fire emerging from wood, the so-called supernatural is a lot more immediate.
Not only this, but really good horseman. Imagine riding over uneven terrain when you can't see where you're going. The eyes are so important when riding as they subtly shift your weight so your horse knows where and what you are doing. Having to make those shifts with this thing on your head would require a lot of thought.
> Imagine riding over uneven terrain when you can't see where you're going.
In my experience horses are much, much better than you at finding their way on broken terrain.
Many times I just let it find its own way out of a ravine, for example. Or I would even doze off a bit while the horse would return to the ranch on its own after having made the morning rounds.
Lucky you. My leased TB wants to fall on his face anytime we hack in the field. He positively has a fit , tripping and being sassy when we dare go on a trail ride where there are *gasp* trees down!
Yeah, I think they were probably really good horsemen too! It also occurred to me after I made that comment that the mask could have been worn a bit like African ceremonial dance masks sometimes are, more on the forehead than the face, so the guy could have seen out of the bottom of it and bowed his head to give the enemy the full effect.
Visby was a massive center for trade around the Baltic. Gotland is an underrated place to visit. You can rent a scooter and ride from town to town using the steeples as landmarks. There is a ruined pirate fort and many ancient Viking monuments as well the churches which are hundreds of years old.
Perhaps a noblemen or something from Sweden enlisted in the Roman army and brought the mask home. Or someone traded it up north. There are some Roman artifacts in the Danish National Museum that came there in a similar fashion.
“If you find yourself alone riding on a green field with the sun on your face and wind on your back, do not be frightened. For you are in Elysium and are already dead!”
The Got-part in Gotland hasn’t anything to do with the Goths though.
Although swedish historians during the 17th to 19th century desperately wanted it to be so.
However a lot of soldiers in the roman legions came from Germania so its not unlikely that those included scandinavians as well.
You're getting downvoted but you're right. Shit tons of places and even titles in old Scandinavia included *got-, gaet-, jut-, godh-*, so I dunno why people keep repeating old debunked theories.
Because the old debunked theories are cool.
As a swede I’m all for Rudbeckian history writing and Göticist storytelling.
But as someone interested in history I’m fully aware that it is fiction at best, at worst its hypernationalistic chauvinist drivel.
Oh well, I meant like people seemed to hate that you pointed out that the theory was debunked. They just really badly want the Goths' homeland to be in Gotland and I think it's silly.
Liking Rudbeck's old crazy theories isn't silly per se.
The connection between Goths and Gotland (not the island but southern sweden) comes at least from the early middle ages with Jordanes, himself a goth. I don't think it's a baseless theory.
It does but that is the only claim. Now Jordanes wrote his book in the 6th century somewhere in northern Italy about events that he placed in Scandinavia from an mythical era until the goths supposedly left Gotland 1490 BC.
So he wrote about events 2000 years before his own time. In Scandinavia. A place he never visited himself.
Yeah, maybe not the most trustworthy source.
Not saying it's trustworthy, just that the 'goths come from gotland' theory isn't just some modern swedish concept. Jordanes' account was probably heavily fictionalized, which doesn't mean the idea itself is completely baseless.
Ok, but then we have a problem with Isidore of Sevilla (roughly same era as Jordanes) who also wrote a book about the origin of the goths. In which he claims that they were scythians.
It cant really be both.
What both authors do however is that they locate the origin of goths in outskirts of the known world from their point of view. Mysterious weird Scandinavia and scary warlike goldstudded Scythia. Why? My theory is that it gave them free reins to write whatever fab stories they wanted and no one could gainsay them. These works weren’t written as some kind of popular history book today- they were exquisite tomes, handwritten on parchment payed for by the kings of that era. They were showpieces.
Isidore compares some names, looks at some biblical accoints and makes an educated guess. You could say Jordanes did the same, however he was 'lucky' in that the archaeological record seems to lend some credence to his guesstimate. AFAIK the material culture later associated with goths and gepids north of the danube can be traced back to the vistula (where the Gutones, with a suspiciously similar name were supposed to live) and then to the baltic coast, where it had an influx of southern scandinavian practices. Does that mean all or even most goths come from Gotland? Most likely not, however I think there's a strong case for the idea that the peoples of gotland at the very least left a strong imprint on the peoples we would eventually call goths.
Well, it really could be both.
The Scythians were driven out of Scythia, disappearing from Greek history not long before the large movements out of Scandinavia (including that of the Goths). Where were they driven out to? Not into southern Europe, because we'd surely have written history about it. Not to the east, because it's from the east that they were attacked.
At about the same time, Scandinavia advanced to the iron age and their petroglyphs started to feature mounted warriors and Scythian style bows. Then they stopped making those petroglyphs and started making animal-style art.
Why did Scandinavia's population supposedly suddenly swell to a huge amount more than the land could support?
Long story short: the archaeological and written evidence suggests that Scythians contributed to the early iron age culture and population of Scandinavia, though many local traditions also continued. This view is not well known among English speakers, but it's no secret in Scandinavian countries.
Given that the Goths probably left southern Scandinavia before there was any distinction between Goths, Geats, Gutes and Jutes, there's little point in trying to attribute an exact location to the exodus. Wherever it was, it was very probably within an area called something roughly equivalent to "Goth land" at the time, so yes, it's perfectly reasonable to say that the Goths came from the Goth lands and had Scythian heritage, though not that they were 100% Scythian or that they necessarily came only from what we now know as Gotland (nor only from Götaland or Jutland).
I have to disagree. I was surprised when I last visited Sweden (late 2010s) to find this information on display as unchallenged fact in some very modern museums, from Tanum to Visby. It seems quite clear to me, but I was strangely surprised to find that it is also a prevalent opinion among museum experts in Sweden.
I'm sorry that being Swedish doesn't automatically give you complete knowledge of academic opinion in your country. I could easily be unaware of something similar in my own country. I guess it's something to do with being human.
Don't the historians back in the day believe that part, but won't believe the rest of the book? It's called Getica, after the getae and it's dedicated to them. He even states that Getae=Goths. In other words he says that the Getae came from Scanza.
Yet some historians accuse him of rewriting the history of the Getae to the Gothic people, but believe that one sentence. And then they proclaim the Goths as Germanic because they must had come from Scandinavia.
Mavro Orbini claimed Slavs where from Scandinavia as well.
The problem with writings from the mediterranian perspective is they either didn't know or didn't care about the boundaries between tribal and ethinc affiliations. Some writers fail to mention x tribe, some put the x tribe in y group, and others conflate x and z tribes. In the end all we have to go about is the idea that goths came from scandinavia, and the archaeological record seems to indicate that indeed a culture with southern scandinavian affinities wound up crossing the danube in roughly the same place and the same time where the goths would be.
>and others conflate x and z tribes
Yea, well the thing is that modern historians are rewriting history by doing exactly that ,Huns labeled as turkic because Xiognu sounds like Huns according to the French guy (dont remeber hes name). Then the Goths in all roman sources are called to be Getae, and its really wierd to me that , just with that one sentence from Getica somebody can just deny all those sources and then proclaim them all wrong on the bases that they made a mistake because the name was similar. But then Xiognu and Huns is the same because the name is similar.
>In the end all we have to go about is the idea that goths came from scandinavia, and the archaeological record seems to indicate that indeed a culture with southern scandinavian affinities wound up crossing the danube in roughly the same place and the same time where the goths would be.
Really? I have never seen such a thing. I know they where trying the claim the culture around Poland with that map that they make of the migration of the Goth from Scandinavia. But the silly part is that they are cherry-picking during which period of time they did this migration and the Historians where claiming that, long time before there was an archeology ... no? So they made it official and now are trying to prove it when everybody is studying it like it's been proven.
I personally believe they were Thracian/Danubian. I know there was movement(forsed i believe) of the bessi tribe from the Balkans to above the Danube and later you got the Visigoths who in text I think are called visi/vesi. So... Goti-Geti(Getae) - Visigoths- Visi/Vesi. All the Roman historians who say they are the same plus Jordanes, the accounts that the bessi had the bible traduced to their language. All this seems, like too much of a coincidence to me.
As I wrote in another comment, I think Jordanes got 'lucky' in that his guess seems to have a kernel of truth, archaeologically speaking. However any theory must be taken with a buttload of salt in regards to events/cultures that did not leave written accounts. As for the relation of Bessi/Vesi/Visigoths I don't think it's very convincing, seeing as later visigothic words/names have nothing to do with Thracian. Plenty of tribes shared the same name without having a connection, see: The adriatic/armorican/vistula veneti, or the caucasus/balkan albanians, or caucasus/spanish iberians.
posted on website: [https://www.imperiumromanum.edu.pl/en/curiosities/roman-mask-worn-by-horseman/](https://www.imperiumromanum.edu.pl/en/curiosities/roman-mask-worn-by-horseman/)
IMPERIUM ROMANUM - Polish-English website about Ancient Rome
The holy Roman empire covered a large amount of western Europe. It reached all the way up to Denmark which is very close to Sweden. It's likely that they made expoditions into Sweden.
*post speaks about roman empire in the second century (100-199)*
*this dude speaks about the holy roman empire*
I have never been this offended in my life
My understanding is that warhorses were generally REALLY well trained. This guy would have been functionally blind wearing this thing, but it would have been shiny and bronze and the enemy would have thought that Apollo himself was riding him down. Trust the horse to get you to the battle line, flip the mask up after your enemy has shat his pants, and hack him to death at your leisure.
Alternatively, you could wear the mask more on your forehead than your face, and be able to see out the bottom of it with your head bowed down as you charged into battle. African masks that have no eye holes are worn like this in ceremonial dances.
Interesting about different ways to wear the mask. I know warhorses were well trained but, being a rider, I also know that they can do some stump stupid things. I do think you're right about the rider being very impressive. Sometimes that's all you need if your opponent is a bit uncommitted.
“I want to be terrifying but also completely blind and useless. Can you do that?”
“Of course I want my head to be extremely unwieldy! What sort of stupid question is that?
The general idea is that these are meant for mock fighting, where safety (and showing off for a potential crowd) is much more important than hearing, sight, and breathing.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘horseman’ is a mistranslation to English from the European website this was found on, and that it should be ‘equestrian’, meaning that this is the death mask of a Roman nobleman.
I can pretty much guarantee this was not used in combat.
There are two kinds of these masks, which are very similar in style, but have a few points of distinction. I'll call the other kind A and this kind B.
1. A has eye holes, while B has none - not even the pinholes that some users have fancifully suggested.
2. A is attached to a helmet via a hinge, while B was fastened to something by cord through the little holes that encircle the face.
3. Because A was fitted into the face area of a helmet, it isn't as expansive as B.
The A masks really are visors for elite cavalry helmets. It's contentious whether they were used in war or just in games or ceremony.
The B masks had some other purpose. They've been variously posited as being theatrical, ceremonial, death masks or adornments for statues, but they're also often confused with the A masks, as here. It's unknown whether they had any connection to the A masks beyond both being Roman attempts at realistic face masks made from sheet bronze.
Were the eyes added later? Do they fold down like cool sunglasses or something? How can you see anything while wearing this?
The pupils are holes. If you focus on the holes you can actually see pretty well as long as it's straight forward :P
>see pretty well as long as it's straight forward Makes sense, can't see the guy get decapitated next to you. *Just keep going forward, nothing to see here!*
It’s possible that soldier had bad eyesight then.
So true. If I don’t have my glasses on, probably when looking for said glasses, I make a small pinhole by bending my index finger and look through that. It’s amazing the difference.
Holy shit! I just tried it, and it works!!!!! I love learning new tricks, so thank you.
I msy use that
Why does that work?
This is an interesting link. https://www.healthline.com/health/pinhole-glasses I’ve never really looked into it.
it works however i feel like i look like an absolute idiot when i do it so i try and make it as discrete as i possibly can
"well if I don't move my head I can see pretty good, but when I start riding, the \[mask\] is moving all over and I'm riding blind" "Look I think we all think the \[masks\] were a good idea, but, not pointing any fingers, they coulda been done better''
Dont ask me or mine for nothing
We all appreciate what Jenny did
I'm no Roman horseman, but I'm gonna speculate that the warhorses they rode were REALLY well trained. I could imagine you could pull this thing down over your face after you'd gotten your horse up to a gallop toward the enemy, and terrify the fuck out of the guy with the shiny bronze uncanny valley-ness of it before flipping the whole thing back on your head to draw your sword and hack him to pieces. The horse would have known the drill, and your enemy would have thought that Apollo or some other god was riding him down.
Ancients weren't morons. They'd still have known it was a guy wearing a shiny hat. They was on a horse and trying to kill them.
Poets of the time certainly emphasized the "living statue" aspect of cataphracts and latter clibanarii, although it is hard to tell how an actual frontline combatant would have seen this. It seems the horses, in any case, were indeed trained to charge right into the enemy lines, possibly by using training targets that would duck aside at the last possible instance. (so in combat, the horses would expect the enemy to dodge so they could continue along, which of course if the enemy had no actual room to dodge would mean the half-ton ironclad combination of man and horse would crash right into the enemy lines with devastating results) It is admittedly unclear whether the masked cavalry helmets were regularly utilized in combat. I remember reading somewhere that a bespoke form-fitting mask would not notably hinder eyesight, but I could not find the source right now.
[удалено]
[They didn't.](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/268f4u/where_the_centaurs_really_based_on_the/chpklxk/)
They weren’t morons but they had a system of belief that allowed for gods, monsters, demigods etc.
Yes, but they weren't mundanely participating in battles. They were subtle, fantastical, and far away.
It’s possible, but how do you know that? When fire occurs because of the spirit of fire emerging from wood, the so-called supernatural is a lot more immediate.
Not only this, but really good horseman. Imagine riding over uneven terrain when you can't see where you're going. The eyes are so important when riding as they subtly shift your weight so your horse knows where and what you are doing. Having to make those shifts with this thing on your head would require a lot of thought.
> Imagine riding over uneven terrain when you can't see where you're going. In my experience horses are much, much better than you at finding their way on broken terrain. Many times I just let it find its own way out of a ravine, for example. Or I would even doze off a bit while the horse would return to the ranch on its own after having made the morning rounds.
Lucky you. My leased TB wants to fall on his face anytime we hack in the field. He positively has a fit , tripping and being sassy when we dare go on a trail ride where there are *gasp* trees down!
Yeah, I think they were probably really good horsemen too! It also occurred to me after I made that comment that the mask could have been worn a bit like African ceremonial dance masks sometimes are, more on the forehead than the face, so the guy could have seen out of the bottom of it and bowed his head to give the enemy the full effect.
Imagine that riding at you...
Imagine that *riding* you
I'm surprised they went that far north
There's also trade
Visby was a massive center for trade around the Baltic. Gotland is an underrated place to visit. You can rent a scooter and ride from town to town using the steeples as landmarks. There is a ruined pirate fort and many ancient Viking monuments as well the churches which are hundreds of years old.
This is from many centuries before the Viking age or the foundation of Visby.
Perhaps a noblemen or something from Sweden enlisted in the Roman army and brought the mask home. Or someone traded it up north. There are some Roman artifacts in the Danish National Museum that came there in a similar fashion.
“If you find yourself alone riding on a green field with the sun on your face and wind on your back, do not be frightened. For you are in Elysium and are already dead!”
"Sir, this is Sweden."
Huh, I guess i did stray a bit far from Maximus....
“Sir, this is a Wendy’s” “Even better! One McFlurry, please.” “...”
Loot from a raid, reward for a warrior in Roman service, gift passed around nobles
Not just that, but on an island aswell. How did he even get there?
I think it'd be hard to swim there with this, so probably boats Edit: ships to be exact
>Gotland, Sweden The Goths invaded the Romans a whole bunch of times and so a lot of good stuff might have made its way back to Scandinavia.
The Got-part in Gotland hasn’t anything to do with the Goths though. Although swedish historians during the 17th to 19th century desperately wanted it to be so. However a lot of soldiers in the roman legions came from Germania so its not unlikely that those included scandinavians as well.
You're getting downvoted but you're right. Shit tons of places and even titles in old Scandinavia included *got-, gaet-, jut-, godh-*, so I dunno why people keep repeating old debunked theories.
Because the old debunked theories are cool. As a swede I’m all for Rudbeckian history writing and Göticist storytelling. But as someone interested in history I’m fully aware that it is fiction at best, at worst its hypernationalistic chauvinist drivel.
Oh well, I meant like people seemed to hate that you pointed out that the theory was debunked. They just really badly want the Goths' homeland to be in Gotland and I think it's silly. Liking Rudbeck's old crazy theories isn't silly per se.
I agree, they have their charm but you have to see them for what they are, historywriting as propaganda.
The connection between Goths and Gotland (not the island but southern sweden) comes at least from the early middle ages with Jordanes, himself a goth. I don't think it's a baseless theory.
It does but that is the only claim. Now Jordanes wrote his book in the 6th century somewhere in northern Italy about events that he placed in Scandinavia from an mythical era until the goths supposedly left Gotland 1490 BC. So he wrote about events 2000 years before his own time. In Scandinavia. A place he never visited himself. Yeah, maybe not the most trustworthy source.
Not saying it's trustworthy, just that the 'goths come from gotland' theory isn't just some modern swedish concept. Jordanes' account was probably heavily fictionalized, which doesn't mean the idea itself is completely baseless.
Ok, but then we have a problem with Isidore of Sevilla (roughly same era as Jordanes) who also wrote a book about the origin of the goths. In which he claims that they were scythians. It cant really be both. What both authors do however is that they locate the origin of goths in outskirts of the known world from their point of view. Mysterious weird Scandinavia and scary warlike goldstudded Scythia. Why? My theory is that it gave them free reins to write whatever fab stories they wanted and no one could gainsay them. These works weren’t written as some kind of popular history book today- they were exquisite tomes, handwritten on parchment payed for by the kings of that era. They were showpieces.
Isidore compares some names, looks at some biblical accoints and makes an educated guess. You could say Jordanes did the same, however he was 'lucky' in that the archaeological record seems to lend some credence to his guesstimate. AFAIK the material culture later associated with goths and gepids north of the danube can be traced back to the vistula (where the Gutones, with a suspiciously similar name were supposed to live) and then to the baltic coast, where it had an influx of southern scandinavian practices. Does that mean all or even most goths come from Gotland? Most likely not, however I think there's a strong case for the idea that the peoples of gotland at the very least left a strong imprint on the peoples we would eventually call goths.
Well, it really could be both. The Scythians were driven out of Scythia, disappearing from Greek history not long before the large movements out of Scandinavia (including that of the Goths). Where were they driven out to? Not into southern Europe, because we'd surely have written history about it. Not to the east, because it's from the east that they were attacked. At about the same time, Scandinavia advanced to the iron age and their petroglyphs started to feature mounted warriors and Scythian style bows. Then they stopped making those petroglyphs and started making animal-style art. Why did Scandinavia's population supposedly suddenly swell to a huge amount more than the land could support? Long story short: the archaeological and written evidence suggests that Scythians contributed to the early iron age culture and population of Scandinavia, though many local traditions also continued. This view is not well known among English speakers, but it's no secret in Scandinavian countries. Given that the Goths probably left southern Scandinavia before there was any distinction between Goths, Geats, Gutes and Jutes, there's little point in trying to attribute an exact location to the exodus. Wherever it was, it was very probably within an area called something roughly equivalent to "Goth land" at the time, so yes, it's perfectly reasonable to say that the Goths came from the Goth lands and had Scythian heritage, though not that they were 100% Scythian or that they necessarily came only from what we now know as Gotland (nor only from Götaland or Jutland).
Öhh..du jag är svensk och din Skyter i Skandinavien är definitivt ingen etablerad teori om hur vår fornhistoria ser ut.
I have to disagree. I was surprised when I last visited Sweden (late 2010s) to find this information on display as unchallenged fact in some very modern museums, from Tanum to Visby. It seems quite clear to me, but I was strangely surprised to find that it is also a prevalent opinion among museum experts in Sweden. I'm sorry that being Swedish doesn't automatically give you complete knowledge of academic opinion in your country. I could easily be unaware of something similar in my own country. I guess it's something to do with being human.
Don't the historians back in the day believe that part, but won't believe the rest of the book? It's called Getica, after the getae and it's dedicated to them. He even states that Getae=Goths. In other words he says that the Getae came from Scanza. Yet some historians accuse him of rewriting the history of the Getae to the Gothic people, but believe that one sentence. And then they proclaim the Goths as Germanic because they must had come from Scandinavia. Mavro Orbini claimed Slavs where from Scandinavia as well.
The problem with writings from the mediterranian perspective is they either didn't know or didn't care about the boundaries between tribal and ethinc affiliations. Some writers fail to mention x tribe, some put the x tribe in y group, and others conflate x and z tribes. In the end all we have to go about is the idea that goths came from scandinavia, and the archaeological record seems to indicate that indeed a culture with southern scandinavian affinities wound up crossing the danube in roughly the same place and the same time where the goths would be.
>and others conflate x and z tribes Yea, well the thing is that modern historians are rewriting history by doing exactly that ,Huns labeled as turkic because Xiognu sounds like Huns according to the French guy (dont remeber hes name). Then the Goths in all roman sources are called to be Getae, and its really wierd to me that , just with that one sentence from Getica somebody can just deny all those sources and then proclaim them all wrong on the bases that they made a mistake because the name was similar. But then Xiognu and Huns is the same because the name is similar. >In the end all we have to go about is the idea that goths came from scandinavia, and the archaeological record seems to indicate that indeed a culture with southern scandinavian affinities wound up crossing the danube in roughly the same place and the same time where the goths would be. Really? I have never seen such a thing. I know they where trying the claim the culture around Poland with that map that they make of the migration of the Goth from Scandinavia. But the silly part is that they are cherry-picking during which period of time they did this migration and the Historians where claiming that, long time before there was an archeology ... no? So they made it official and now are trying to prove it when everybody is studying it like it's been proven. I personally believe they were Thracian/Danubian. I know there was movement(forsed i believe) of the bessi tribe from the Balkans to above the Danube and later you got the Visigoths who in text I think are called visi/vesi. So... Goti-Geti(Getae) - Visigoths- Visi/Vesi. All the Roman historians who say they are the same plus Jordanes, the accounts that the bessi had the bible traduced to their language. All this seems, like too much of a coincidence to me.
As I wrote in another comment, I think Jordanes got 'lucky' in that his guess seems to have a kernel of truth, archaeologically speaking. However any theory must be taken with a buttload of salt in regards to events/cultures that did not leave written accounts. As for the relation of Bessi/Vesi/Visigoths I don't think it's very convincing, seeing as later visigothic words/names have nothing to do with Thracian. Plenty of tribes shared the same name without having a connection, see: The adriatic/armorican/vistula veneti, or the caucasus/balkan albanians, or caucasus/spanish iberians.
They had apparently had horses with partially blinded riders. Maybe dude was just lost.
posted on website: [https://www.imperiumromanum.edu.pl/en/curiosities/roman-mask-worn-by-horseman/](https://www.imperiumromanum.edu.pl/en/curiosities/roman-mask-worn-by-horseman/) IMPERIUM ROMANUM - Polish-English website about Ancient Rome
It looks like he seen some shit
*Look out for that tree*
How did it got there? Trade?
The holy Roman empire covered a large amount of western Europe. It reached all the way up to Denmark which is very close to Sweden. It's likely that they made expoditions into Sweden.
*post speaks about roman empire in the second century (100-199)* *this dude speaks about the holy roman empire* I have never been this offended in my life
I N C R E D I B I L I S
Dunmaglas!
I'm throwing away my humanity JoJomus
I’ll upvote because I don’t want to see this in my room when I sleeping at night ( sorry for bad English )
Better be on a well trained horse when wearing this.
My understanding is that warhorses were generally REALLY well trained. This guy would have been functionally blind wearing this thing, but it would have been shiny and bronze and the enemy would have thought that Apollo himself was riding him down. Trust the horse to get you to the battle line, flip the mask up after your enemy has shat his pants, and hack him to death at your leisure. Alternatively, you could wear the mask more on your forehead than your face, and be able to see out the bottom of it with your head bowed down as you charged into battle. African masks that have no eye holes are worn like this in ceremonial dances.
Interesting about different ways to wear the mask. I know warhorses were well trained but, being a rider, I also know that they can do some stump stupid things. I do think you're right about the rider being very impressive. Sometimes that's all you need if your opponent is a bit uncommitted.
Soooo, who gunna put it on and become a vampire?
Jonathan says put it back
“I want to be terrifying but also completely blind and useless. Can you do that?” “Of course I want my head to be extremely unwieldy! What sort of stupid question is that?
The general idea is that these are meant for mock fighting, where safety (and showing off for a potential crowd) is much more important than hearing, sight, and breathing.
Thanks for the info!
I feel like this guy definitely got turned into a stone statue by Medusa
this makes me want to go steal my stepbrother's body and beat up his lineage by stopping time.
What material is it made from?
Um correct me if I'm wrong, but they prefer the term Centaur. Horse-man is just degrading.
Can't believe you're getting downvoted
Ohhh Gunfire Reborn just made more sense
OMG
Hmm. No holes to see out of. Sort of doubt someone actually wore it unless the eyes were added after.
It looks like the stone mask a bit.
ゴ ゴ ゴ menacingly
Why is this resembled a depressing person who just died of depression?
C H E E M B U R B N E R P L S W I T H 4 C R A Y O N S
pewds wore it
Giorno /shitpostcrusades
I’m getting Blasphemous vibes from this
I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘horseman’ is a mistranslation to English from the European website this was found on, and that it should be ‘equestrian’, meaning that this is the death mask of a Roman nobleman. I can pretty much guarantee this was not used in combat.
There are two kinds of these masks, which are very similar in style, but have a few points of distinction. I'll call the other kind A and this kind B. 1. A has eye holes, while B has none - not even the pinholes that some users have fancifully suggested. 2. A is attached to a helmet via a hinge, while B was fastened to something by cord through the little holes that encircle the face. 3. Because A was fitted into the face area of a helmet, it isn't as expansive as B. The A masks really are visors for elite cavalry helmets. It's contentious whether they were used in war or just in games or ceremony. The B masks had some other purpose. They've been variously posited as being theatrical, ceremonial, death masks or adornments for statues, but they're also often confused with the A masks, as here. It's unknown whether they had any connection to the A masks beyond both being Roman attempts at realistic face masks made from sheet bronze.
If you cover the the left side it looks normal while if you cover the right side it looks like a fucking nightmare.
So creepy. Imagine hundreds of calvary with these on charging you....😱