A rusty iron helmet found in an antique shop in the Midlands with a label on it, which said. ‘Viking Helmet found in the River Derwent at Stamford Bridge by D R Lancaster, May 21, 1950’, turns out to possibly be a priceless relic. Stamford Bridge was where King Harold Godwinson defeated Viking invaders in 1066 before he himself was beaten by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.
Harold, England’s last Anglo-Saxon king, may have beaten off the Norman Conquest had he not had to fight at Stamford Bridge, which is near York. After beating the 10,000-strong Viking army Harold and his men marched south fro Yorkshire to Hastings in short order and his army must have been exhausted..
It was believed that no relics of the battle had survived. Nicholas Reeves, an Egyptologist, found the conical four-plate helmet by chance at the Midlands dealer’s. He said. “The possible significance of this was quite unrecognized by the seller, and even the helmet itself appeared to him to be of only moderate interest, presumably because of its condition.”
Alan Williams, a medieval armour metallurgist at the Wallace Collection in London, concluded that the metal is a low-carbon iron typical of early artefacts from Celtic times to before the Industrial Revolution. “It could be 11th century, or Roman, or Civil War,” Dr Williams said. “The shape suggests an early medieval date, and the 10th-11th century helmet attributed to Saint Wenceslas is also a low-carbon steel so it could be 11th century, but we cannot say positively.” The mystery could remain unless someone is able to identify the label’s writer.
