The Dating of Helmets and Corselets in Early Greece

Kukahn, Der Griechische Helm , has traced the development of the Corinthian helmet—(1) a ‘stove-pipe’ shape, longer than it was broad; (2) ( a ) back adapted to the human head; ( b ) necessary modifications of the side; (3) plastic adjustment of the cap. His catalogue follows this scheme, but he makes nonsense of it by dating nos. 44–69 about 600 B.C. (p. 32, see pl. 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6), and a more developed helmet no. 76 (pl. 32) about 640 B.C. He has seen (p. 26) that 2a is depicted on vases dated before 650 B.C.; so is 2b, with a bend in the side, though Kukahn has missed it (p. 28). See Payne's photograph of the plastic aryballos in Berlin and of the Macmillan vase, PV p. 23; also the helmet of the kneeling man on an aryballos, Johansen, pl. XXIII, 1. ‘Stove-pipe’ helmets continue to occur long after 600 B.C., the foot often hidden by a shield, but the best helmets of 600 B.C. are not shaped like a pipe (see Payne, NC pl. 31, 9 and pi. 32, 2); more like the ‘fly-away’ helmet, Kukahn no. 134, pl. 3, 6 than like no. 55, pl. 2, 6, which he dates about 600 B.C

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