Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we're doing the Horned helm. That's right. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be one of our essentially one of our Invention
Speaker 1: themed episodes. But I've decided, you know, we really need
Speaker 1: to come back to armor, and the best place to
Speaker 1: start with armor is really the helmet. I think the
Speaker 1: helmet is is one of these wonderful things to consider
Speaker 1: because on the one hand, there is the more sort
Speaker 1: of combat centric and you know, medieval uh, and even
Speaker 1: fantasy idea of a helmet or sci fi helmets, like
Speaker 1: you can get very fantastic with the concept. But at
Speaker 1: a very basic level, I feel like we all have
Speaker 1: some experience wearing a helmet, taking this bit of artificial exoskeleton,
Speaker 1: slipping it over our own skull, and then enjoying its protection.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the scene in cone Heads where it
Speaker 1: is revealed that Dan Ackroyd's cone Head Belder enjoys driving
Speaker 1: a motorcycle, but he's not a fan of helmet laws. No,
Speaker 1: I don't remember this. Does he have a weird helmet
Speaker 1: or he just he can't wear human helmets. I would
Speaker 1: imagine that's the source of his frustration, because it seems
Speaker 1: like Belder is actually normally pretty much a rule follower.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, he doesn't like the helmets, and I
Speaker 1: think it's probably because he has to get one custom made.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I haven't seen that forever, but I do
Speaker 1: remember it had a really fun stop motion monster towards
Speaker 1: the end. Yes, yeah, yeah, Beldar has gotta fight one
Speaker 1: with his golf skills. It also has a great line that,
Speaker 1: for some reason is is just used for all occasions
Speaker 1: around our house, which is your cone is too young. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I I don't remember if they wore helmets
Speaker 1: in that at all, like the more like space centric
Speaker 1: cone heads, but I feel like there was some sort
Speaker 1: of a hornyed crown that one of them war. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. So one of the we're gonna
Speaker 1: be discussing helmets in general. But but one thing that
Speaker 1: we're also going to discuss here is the idea of
Speaker 1: the hornett helm a helmet with horns on it. It's
Speaker 1: it's an ancient motif in human civilization, and it ties
Speaker 1: into some of our earliest ceremonial practices and models of
Speaker 1: imaginative thinking. There's also just something so elegant about the
Speaker 1: idea thing that may be worn upon the head and
Speaker 1: in doing so, transforms the individual from a mere human
Speaker 1: into something symbolically different, a hybrid of human and beasts,
Speaker 1: channeling the archaic, chaotic gods of the hunt. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's theory anthropy. It's what you see
Speaker 1: in those ancient cave paintings that's so exciting, when you
Speaker 1: start to see the human and the animal forms joined together,
Speaker 1: suggesting fantastical thinking. It's clearly there in the horned helmet
Speaker 1: as well. Um, and and and so when you see
Speaker 1: these ancient motifs. Like one example that I was looking
Speaker 1: at before we came in here today was Roberty familiar
Speaker 1: with the sutton who helmet. Oh yes, yes, the sudden
Speaker 1: who helmet. I had to pull up a picture of it.
Speaker 1: But this is one of these that I remember from
Speaker 1: an early age seeing perhaps on the cover of a
Speaker 1: national geographic but it was certainly featured in some sort
Speaker 1: of historical book that I had access to as a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just spectacularly creepy. With these hollow eyes, the way
Speaker 1: the mustache is rendered on the plate of the face covering.
Speaker 1: I think it also had a leather component when it
Speaker 1: was actually worn. But it's this decorated Anglo saxon helmet
Speaker 1: from I think it was from the seventh century. It
Speaker 1: was buried in this in this ship burial somewhere in
Speaker 1: East Anglia. And I've actually seen this up close and
Speaker 1: and they're there are replicas of it that are really
Speaker 1: cool because they reproduced the artwork that would have been
Speaker 1: originally visible on the sides and all the it's got
Speaker 1: all these panels over it. Basically it's a helmet covered
Speaker 1: with like comic strips, and in all the little panels
Speaker 1: there are scenes depicted. In one of them shows these figures,
Speaker 1: like human shaped figures with horns, apparently wearing some kind
Speaker 1: of horned helmet. Oh wow, So evidence of hornet helmets
Speaker 1: on a helmet. That's wonderful, Yes, but it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: show the characters wearing horned helmets, say, going into battle.
Speaker 1: It appears to have more kind of a ritual or
Speaker 1: religious significance surrounding the horns. Yeah, and this seems to
Speaker 1: be basically underlying the earliest versions of of this, you know,
Speaker 1: hornet helmets go back thousands of years, as far back
Speaker 1: as twelfth century BC. We see this in Cyprus, Bronze
Speaker 1: Age Europe, uh and uh. Generally, the idea is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: this probably has its origins and in against symbolic thinking
Speaker 1: and thinking and ritual and the idea that you're transforming,
Speaker 1: you're becoming something else, which of course has a role
Speaker 1: in combat as well, and a role in intimidation, a
Speaker 1: sort of role in the basic um uh behavior of
Speaker 1: making yourself look larger than you are sure. But but
Speaker 1: then there's also this uh, imaginative side to it. There
Speaker 1: is this ritual aspect of melding man and beast, the
Speaker 1: symbolic or meaningful aspects of the horns as opposed to
Speaker 1: having some kind of like combat purpose. That really comes
Speaker 1: through in some of the Japanese traditions you see where
Speaker 1: like they're they're the kabuto, the Japanese warrior helmets, where
Speaker 1: I believe a number of these helmets do actually have
Speaker 1: horns on them, sometimes deer antlers or cattle horns, but
Speaker 1: these would be linked to like a like a leadership
Speaker 1: class that they would be sort of a sign that
Speaker 1: you were a commander. Yeah, and we we definitely see
Speaker 1: this in in the early history of helmets as well,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into. But in terms of just the
Speaker 1: idea of a horned helm, obviously we have a modern
Speaker 1: connotation with Vikings. Uh. This is my understanding. I know
Speaker 1: you're gonna get into this more. It's I think it's
Speaker 1: largely a nineteenth century association, but uh, there are plenty
Speaker 1: of other warriors, uh, and in symbolic warriors uh that
Speaker 1: actually wore horneted helms in Europe. And this included Bronze
Speaker 1: Age Danes, Medieval Germanic warriors, and then of course, so
Speaker 1: we already mentioned Japanese samurai uh, armored warriors of Japan. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what one also sees horns and horn like crenulations
Speaker 1: as a common feature of crowns, which of course are
Speaker 1: not really about protecting the head. It's more like, let's
Speaker 1: take the thing, the symbolic thing a helmet can do,
Speaker 1: and just not worry about any of the protective aspects
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, Yeah, totally. So to come back
Speaker 1: to the fact that the Vikings didn't actually wear horns,
Speaker 1: I think this at this point that's sort of one
Speaker 1: of those false facts that everybody knows that everybody knows
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, like most people have heard, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Vikings didn't actually wear horned helmets. But the fact
Speaker 1: about where this Viking horn association comes from is pretty
Speaker 1: interesting and it's kind of surprising. There's a great paper
Speaker 1: about this by a Yale linguistics professor named ROBERTA. Fry Inc.
Speaker 1: Published in the year two thousand and it's called The
Speaker 1: Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet. And according to Frank,
Speaker 1: the origin of this misunderstanding that Viking warriors would wear
Speaker 1: horned helmets into battle that lies primarily with a late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century artist and costume designer named Carl Amile Dippler.
Speaker 1: So Dirpler was a German artist and and was in
Speaker 1: charge of designing costumes for an eighteen seventy six Byroid
Speaker 1: production of Wagner's musical epic Der Ring des Nibelungen The
Speaker 1: Ring of Nibelung, which is a is a series of works. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think there's four different sort of phases in this
Speaker 1: cycle by Wagner, and it takes a lot of classic
Speaker 1: Norse mythology, but it sort of smashes it together with
Speaker 1: ideas about German national history and all these Germanic flavors.
Speaker 1: And one of these conflations was in Dirpler's costumes. Dippler
Speaker 1: gave the gave several characters horned helmets, and this sparked
Speaker 1: the popular association between Vikings, who would have been roving
Speaker 1: Scandinavian warriors between something like the eighth and the eleventh century.
Speaker 1: And then this idea of horned helms, which would have
Speaker 1: actually been worn by some people, maybe some some ancient
Speaker 1: Germanic people's, but not by the Vikings. But anyway, the
Speaker 1: spark of this association caught on, and there were other
Speaker 1: instances here and there, but within about twenty years it
Speaker 1: had become much more pervasive. ROBERTA. Frank writes quote. During
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties, the horned helmeted Viking changed from a
Speaker 1: series of widely scattered occurrences into a kind of weather
Speaker 1: mass produced. Children's books were an ideal medium for imprinting
Speaker 1: the image on the popular imagination. So it becomes a
Speaker 1: staple of children's books. And once it's in children's media,
Speaker 1: you know it's just going to be everywhere. Right, You're
Speaker 1: just in indicted at such a young age that even
Speaker 1: when you inevitably reach that point where you learn again
Speaker 1: the idea that everybody knows the Vikings didn't have horns,
Speaker 1: it's almost too late because that motif is just burned
Speaker 1: into your brain. Uh so you you end up carrying
Speaker 1: like both at the same time, contradictorily. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And another thing that I thought was interesting that this
Speaker 1: section was actually highlighted in a vox piece I was reading.
Speaker 1: But this is also from ROBERTA. Frank's article. Uh. She
Speaker 1: notes that the idea of the Viking Age as a
Speaker 1: distinct period in European history is also actually a late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century invention. Frank writes, quote, until the Viking Age
Speaker 1: was invented, there was no horned, helmeted Viking, and vice versa.
Speaker 1: The two go together like Easter and bonnet. A Viking
Speaker 1: Age is first mentioned in eighteen seventy three in two
Speaker 1: independent Danish and Swedish articles. The period gets its first
Speaker 1: monumental right up in Johanna steen Strips four volume Norman Ern,
Speaker 1: published between eighteens seventy six and eighteen eighty two. Perhaps
Speaker 1: only an expansionist empire building era could have thought up
Speaker 1: an age that began with naval attacks on foreign shores
Speaker 1: and ended when these attacks ceased. So yes, to clarify,
Speaker 1: there have been decorative horned helms in history, but the
Speaker 1: Scandinavian warriors of the roughly eighth to eleventh century generally
Speaker 1: did not wear helmets like this. Uh And and this
Speaker 1: idea mostly comes from the late nineteenth century. Another thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was kind of funny. What associations do
Speaker 1: you get from the idea of a horned helmet? What
Speaker 1: does that suggest about the person wearing it well and instantly?
Speaker 1: And part of this I think has to do with
Speaker 1: the Viking motif becoming such a central part of a
Speaker 1: fantasy imagery as well, you know, sort of friends of Frazetta,
Speaker 1: um Art and so forth. Is the idea that this
Speaker 1: is what a barbarian wears on their head. This is
Speaker 1: it's it symbolizes a barbaric or primal state of being,
Speaker 1: exactly right. I mean that's the same way I feel
Speaker 1: like horned helmets at a gut level signify a kind
Speaker 1: of uncivilized brutality, like a theory anthropy mindset, where you know,
Speaker 1: in battle, I am no longer a human, I am
Speaker 1: a charging bull. I am a beast without reason. And
Speaker 1: in light of that, I wanted to read a passage
Speaker 1: that ROBERTA. Frank quotes from a novel by the historian
Speaker 1: Alfred Dugan. This is from the King of Athelney. It's
Speaker 1: about Alfred the Great, who was king of the Anglo
Speaker 1: Saxons in the ninth century. And I think this part
Speaker 1: is from Alfred's perspective. Quote on his head was one
Speaker 1: of those impractical but imposing helmets embellished with spreading ox horns,
Speaker 1: which among the heathen were a badge of grandeur. That
Speaker 1: was a comforting site, implying that the pirates expected fair
Speaker 1: play and no bloodshed. No sensible warrior would risk his
Speaker 1: life under a helmet which could be knocked flying by
Speaker 1: a single stroke. That isn't a full very good point,
Speaker 1: and it really underlines too some of the forces we're
Speaker 1: going to be discussing in in in this episode about
Speaker 1: you know, early and important um helmet designs is that
Speaker 1: you know you have you have the the need to
Speaker 1: protect the head. You have this other aesthetic principle coming
Speaker 1: into play where you want to to look cool in
Speaker 1: the helmet or look imposing or signal something about your status.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you need to be able
Speaker 1: to fight in this thing you need. You don't need
Speaker 1: horns that can as as the author states here, that
Speaker 1: will allow your helmet to be just taken off or
Speaker 1: just spun around violently on your head due to essentially
Speaker 1: a miss by the opponent. You know, you need something
Speaker 1: that is going to have a certain level of comfort, uh,
Speaker 1: as well as durability. Yeah, you don't want to attach
Speaker 1: levers to your armor where it can just easily be
Speaker 1: wrenched off of you. Right. Ideally your armor would be
Speaker 1: really tough and would be as like flat then close
Speaker 1: to your body as possible so that it stays put
Speaker 1: and doesn't get dislodged. Yeah. Um. And certainly when you
Speaker 1: start start looking at different helmets, even those that do
Speaker 1: have some sort of a horn or spike motif the
Speaker 1: ones that see more use to one that can certainly
Speaker 1: be ornate, you often see something that's a little smaller
Speaker 1: in stature. Uh. For instance, for for single horns and spikes,
Speaker 1: we see plenty of examples of this where the top
Speaker 1: of the helmet tapers into a spike of some sort.
Speaker 1: There are the the the kulakud helms of Persia and
Speaker 1: then you also have the famous pickle haba helms that
Speaker 1: are typically associated with the Prussian and German militaries of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and you of course
Speaker 1: occasionally see them in biker movies as well. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look at a lot of Allied propaganda during
Speaker 1: the World War One era, it would often depict the
Speaker 1: German enemy with a with a pickle helba like a
Speaker 1: you know, a spear on the top of its helmet. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things, of course, is the spear
Speaker 1: has no real offensive purpose. You know that you're not
Speaker 1: gonna like, uh, you know, bend over and then run
Speaker 1: into combat and try and stab people with the top
Speaker 1: of your head. But there is a fun scene I
Speaker 1: don't know if it has any even remotely you know,
Speaker 1: historic counterpart. But there was a film written and directed
Speaker 1: by James Clavell of Showgun and uh the Fly Fame,
Speaker 1: and it is titled The Last Valley, and there's a
Speaker 1: scene in which Michael Kine's character, who wears one of
Speaker 1: these helmets, has casually taken it off for some sort
Speaker 1: of conversation and then use it to murder the other
Speaker 1: individual by stabbing them in the chest with it, and
Speaker 1: then is it like the purloined letter, like they never
Speaker 1: know to look for the murder weapon on top of
Speaker 1: his head. Oh. I mean he does it in front
Speaker 1: of numerous people, so it's it's not so much a
Speaker 1: murder mystery as more of a uh you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's completely governed by the rules of war.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a shady act. But essentially, like he
Speaker 1: and his bunch, if I remember correctly there, they're essentially defecting.
Speaker 1: They find this this valley that's untouched by the wars
Speaker 1: ravaging the countrysides around them, and they're like, well, hell,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna stay here, but I need to kill
Speaker 1: this guy first with my helmet. You never trust to
Speaker 1: Michael Caine. Uh. You know, we already touched on some
Speaker 1: of the fantasy elements here, but I know that I
Speaker 1: grew up with a lot of Warhammer and Warhammer forty
Speaker 1: thousand imagery in my head, and they always had these
Speaker 1: really horned up chaos warriors where they had really almost
Speaker 1: like this exaggerated Viking heilm motif. Uh. Sometimes the horns
Speaker 1: met in the middle and kind of formed a ring,
Speaker 1: but other times they were just straight up horns um elsewhere,
Speaker 1: and I like current popular culture, you see a lot
Speaker 1: of cool horns. For instance, Marvel's version of Loki often
Speaker 1: dresses up with a helm that has some just ridiculous
Speaker 1: horns spiraling out of the top of it. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you watch The Mandalorian, there's actually a horned Mandalorian that
Speaker 1: pops up in that show, character called the Armor. And
Speaker 1: then um and then I was also thinking, as long
Speaker 1: as we're talking about Disney, there's a sleeping beauty have
Speaker 1: Maleficent two has these horns that are either I'm not
Speaker 1: I was never entirely clear if those were part of
Speaker 1: her body or just part of her fantastic wardrobe. You know,
Speaker 1: I gotta say I've always been partial to Tim the
Speaker 1: Enchanter from Monty Python on the Holy Grail, of course,
Speaker 1: with his rams horns, which I don't recall exactly, but
Speaker 1: it looks almost like they're more attached to like a
Speaker 1: hood than a helmet. I guess that's the thing when
Speaker 1: you get into a magic user, right, like, what where
Speaker 1: does the the magical individual end in the magical costume begin?
Speaker 1: You're not entirely certain. Yeah, and this would bring us
Speaker 1: back to the idea of somebody with a kind of
Speaker 1: shamonic stature, right he's supposed to have. It suggests a
Speaker 1: hybrid nature animal human power, that kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: in terms of just sort of the transformative aspects of
Speaker 1: the helmet itself, we of course see plenty of examples
Speaker 1: of this in in our media. Uh Um, you know
Speaker 1: it goes everything from Darth Vader's helmet being such an
Speaker 1: iconic example of this too. So many different slasher villains
Speaker 1: in horror, you know, they have some sort of signature
Speaker 1: mask or masks that they wear. And I was thinking,
Speaker 1: as cool as all those various masks are, I can't
Speaker 1: think of a hornet example of that, you know, an
Speaker 1: idea of like some sort of a slasher murderer character
Speaker 1: who has a helmet or a mask that incorporates horns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of one either, though I do think
Speaker 1: a good horned monster it would be wonderful. And it's
Speaker 1: underused in cinema. I've long maintained I think we've actually
Speaker 1: talked about this before, that the minotaur is one of
Speaker 1: the most under realized monsters in modern cinema. The minotaur
Speaker 1: should be so terrifying if rendered with the proper care
Speaker 1: the carrot deserves. But you know, I strained to think
Speaker 1: of good minotaurs in modern movies. Yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: there have been some. There have been some good ones
Speaker 1: in the past few decades, but yeah, nothing recently. We'll
Speaker 1: have to get into this when we inevitably come back
Speaker 1: into an episode on the minotaur. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: was looking. I was trying to think though about horror
Speaker 1: film masks, and there is a very minotaur esque looking
Speaker 1: mask that shows up, apparently one of the Purge films,
Speaker 1: so it's a Purge mask with horns. But having not
Speaker 1: actually seen any of these movies, I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is a major perjurer or a marginal perjur. It's
Speaker 1: just a background perjured. I'm not really sure how this
Speaker 1: thing works, but it's it's a cool looking, essentially a
Speaker 1: minotar mask. I'm thinking one of these days in the
Speaker 1: in the Purge movies, they're just gonna get down to
Speaker 1: like the Marie Hondo kind of level, where it's more
Speaker 1: about like possessions, things you don't need than than humans. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have no idea how how detailed they get in
Speaker 1: their world building in the show I think he did
Speaker 1: a TV series which I hope gets into like white collar,
Speaker 1: purge crimes and so forth. I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: dimensions to that, like what are the full rules here?
Speaker 1: And is it just murders legal or like other crimes
Speaker 1: as well. I know the movies must address this, but
Speaker 1: but I don't think I'm going to find out. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: listeners will have to let us know you watch it
Speaker 1: so we don't have to. But you know, when you
Speaker 1: think about the helmet not as a decoration, I mean
Speaker 1: most of what we've been talking about is idea decoration
Speaker 1: and trying to create visual significance. When you think about
Speaker 1: the helmet as a practical invention, I love that it's
Speaker 1: pretty much just creating a second skull. You've already got
Speaker 1: a skull. It's a hard casing that covers the brain.
Speaker 1: And then some people got the idea of what if
Speaker 1: I just did another one on top. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: you could basically think of it this way in terms
Speaker 1: of human on human violence, Like the skull does a
Speaker 1: pretty good job protecting against um, you know, fists and kicks,
Speaker 1: and I'll not to say that it can't be fractured
Speaker 1: in those encounters as well. But once you start involving
Speaker 1: tools um offensive tools like it is the it is
Speaker 1: such an elegant um defensive tool to develop as well. Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're going to upgrade your strikes with pieces of
Speaker 1: bone and uh and and you know, stones and so forth,
Speaker 1: then I want to have something around my head that
Speaker 1: at least cushions the blow if if if not shields
Speaker 1: me from from some of the more direct violence that
Speaker 1: is inherent your attack. Yeah, that actually highlights that there
Speaker 1: are a couple of different physics issues going on when
Speaker 1: you're creating a helmet, right. One of them is you
Speaker 1: want to prevent like just direct injury to the outer tissues,
Speaker 1: like to the skin and the bone of your skull,
Speaker 1: because obviously you don't want fractures in your skull. But
Speaker 1: another thing is, even if nothing would break through, you
Speaker 1: also want to provide a certain amount of padding that
Speaker 1: will slow the rate of acceleration caused by jostling of
Speaker 1: the head and different directions. You know, when you get
Speaker 1: hit in the head, A lot of what can hurt
Speaker 1: you is if your brain suddenly slashes too fast against
Speaker 1: the inside of your skull from the acceleration of the blow.
Speaker 1: So like a football, helmet works because it pads that out,
Speaker 1: it slows it down. Yeah, So hopefully this provides a
Speaker 1: good a good initial overview of what helmets are and
Speaker 1: some of the different roles they play. But this leads
Speaker 1: to the most obvious question, is this just a human thing?
Speaker 1: Is this pure human technology? Or do we because essentially
Speaker 1: it is tool used, do we see this sort of
Speaker 1: tool use in other animals out there? Well, we're going
Speaker 1: to answer that question after we come back. Thank thank
Speaker 1: thank Alright, we're back, So we're asking the question, Hey,
Speaker 1: do any animals wear helmets? Okay, so essentially no, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some caveats. I guess it. It basically
Speaker 1: comes down to how far are you willing to stretch
Speaker 1: the idea of a helmet. So, for instance, hermit crabs,
Speaker 1: obviously they're they're acquiring a shell from another organism and
Speaker 1: using them as additional armor over their own exoskelets, and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they're not wearing it on their head.
Speaker 1: But then that didn't make sense. Why would they wear
Speaker 1: just something over their head. They're going to cover their
Speaker 1: whole body. It's more like a mineral diaper, I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: a mineral diaper. Uh. You Also there are examples of
Speaker 1: of octopi using you know, coconut husts that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But again, I don't know if i'd really qualify that
Speaker 1: as a helmet as like as specifically the shielding of
Speaker 1: one's skull, of one hit one's head, of one's brain
Speaker 1: with some sort of additional layering. I think a thing
Speaker 1: we're also going to run into with with this question
Speaker 1: about animals is, um, how external is the head covering
Speaker 1: originally because they're there are lots lots of animals obviously
Speaker 1: that have natural shielding of the head that's just part
Speaker 1: of their body. And then you have the hermit crab,
Speaker 1: which of course it's not on the head, but it
Speaker 1: like picks up something from the environment and uses that
Speaker 1: as armor. And then you've got some stuff that's going
Speaker 1: to be kind of in between those two extremes. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and so certainly again you have plenty of creatures
Speaker 1: that have some fabulous armor around the head, but it's
Speaker 1: not something that they have acquired or created. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you also have these um activities that seem cantalizingly
Speaker 1: close to, if not helmet wearing that at least hat technology.
Speaker 1: Guerillas certainly have been observed to put straw on their
Speaker 1: bodies and on their head. Uh. I mean, I've seen
Speaker 1: this before at the zoo multiple times. It's always amusing.
Speaker 1: It's you know, oh, the gorilla put put some straw
Speaker 1: in its head. Now it's walking around. But this seems
Speaker 1: at best aligned with keeping sun or rain off. But
Speaker 1: I've also seen it discussed in terms of a quote
Speaker 1: straw wave, which I take to mean that it's more
Speaker 1: about gesticulating and play versus doing anything with the straw
Speaker 1: that is actually functional. Um. At any rate, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how qualified as as hat wearing. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: qualified that, then you might also want to qualify well
Speaker 1: as So let's say elephants often would cover the tops
Speaker 1: of their heads or backs with mud in order to
Speaker 1: to shield themselves in various ways. Would that count as
Speaker 1: a hat? I don't really think so. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean if you walk from a human standpoint, like if
Speaker 1: a human walked into a fine restaurant with their their
Speaker 1: bald head covered in mud, no one would say, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you have to take your hat off the side. So, uh,
Speaker 1: where we're getting into silly territory here, because I do
Speaker 1: have at least one example of an animal, actually a
Speaker 1: few different species that do wear something like a helmet
Speaker 1: or a hat, and we ultimately have to to cheat
Speaker 1: a little bit to to to count this as well.
Speaker 1: But we actually end up hitting on another favorite trend
Speaker 1: of mine in fictional helmets, and that is skeletal helms.
Speaker 1: Uh so like rattle shirt in a Song of Ice
Speaker 1: and Fire or the what is a general kale or
Speaker 1: kale from the movie Willow? Yeah, a bone helmet? Sure,
Speaker 1: so obviously that's cool wearing a larger skull over your
Speaker 1: own skull as some sort of a helmet. But what
Speaker 1: if you uh and then likewise, if you wore a
Speaker 1: skull as a hat, that would be kind of goth
Speaker 1: in weird, right, But what if you simply didn't simply
Speaker 1: wear a skull on your head? Uh? What if you
Speaker 1: wore your own skull as a helmet? And heck, what
Speaker 1: if you wore a stack of skulls on top of
Speaker 1: your head as this sort of weird tapering hat. Then
Speaker 1: I'd say you are a fashion innovator. I mean I
Speaker 1: have never seen someone with a stack of their own
Speaker 1: skulls as a hat. But now now I must see it,
Speaker 1: but you would, you'd be a Johnny come Lately because
Speaker 1: the fashion world is far behind the natural world on
Speaker 1: this one. Because this is roughly what we see with
Speaker 1: the caterpillar of the moth. Rabba Lugan's a k a.
Speaker 1: The mad hat a pillar a k a. The gum
Speaker 1: leaf skeletonizer. That that last nickname is due to the
Speaker 1: way it ravages Eucalyptus leaves um and nothing to do
Speaker 1: with its its hat. As we're going to just guys,
Speaker 1: But Luraba luggans is native to Australia in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: and the key here is it's molding, which which Luggans
Speaker 1: does thirteen times during its catapult propillar stage, regularly shedding
Speaker 1: its exoskeleton as it grows. Now, well, I think we're
Speaker 1: all familiar with this sort of molding, uh, the idea
Speaker 1: of leaving behind, you know, this shell of your former exoskeleton.
Speaker 1: You see this in a numerous species. But what Uraba
Speaker 1: does is something a little bit interesting. It keeps the
Speaker 1: exoskeleton head that it just sized out of and it
Speaker 1: remains atop its current head and then when it molts again.
Speaker 1: Why it does the same thing, so that it's wearing
Speaker 1: an exoskeleton of its head like a hat that in
Speaker 1: turn has a smaller exoskeleton helm on top of it.
Speaker 1: And this keeps going and going in a very Susian fashion,
Speaker 1: so that the heads taper off in a stack atop
Speaker 1: the creature's own head. Yeah. So to picture this, I mean,
Speaker 1: you should look it up if you can. But if
Speaker 1: you can't, remember again, the purpose of molting is to
Speaker 1: allow an animal with an exo skeleton to grow bigger.
Speaker 1: So each previous exoskeleton was smaller than the current animal,
Speaker 1: So the heads just keep getting smaller as they go up.
Speaker 1: It's like a stack of beads of diminishing size with
Speaker 1: this tiny original head perched on top. It's like if
Speaker 1: you made a snowman out of exoskeleton heads of a
Speaker 1: caterpillar and they're on top of the head of a caterpillar.
Speaker 1: It's really weird. You. I highly recommend people look up
Speaker 1: a picture of this. It is uh, you are a
Speaker 1: B A l U G E N s well worth
Speaker 1: the price of a Google search. Yeah and uh. And
Speaker 1: scientists generally refer to this as head capsule stacking. And
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that you might look at anythink well,
Speaker 1: this is weird. Is the weird quirk, But it's it's
Speaker 1: not a quirk. It it seems to play a role
Speaker 1: in the caterpillars survival. Now. One of our favorite science writers,
Speaker 1: Ed Young, wrote about the species back in two thousands
Speaker 1: sixteen for National Geographic and he pointed out that back
Speaker 1: in nineteen Australian entomologist Noel McFarland merely speculated that it
Speaker 1: might serve these already large bristly caterpillars by serving as
Speaker 1: a head tail decoy for hungry birds. So a bird
Speaker 1: swoops in SE's, oh there's something tasty, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: and snatch it away, But instead of snatching onto its
Speaker 1: head or tail, it just takes off some crunchy exoskeleton debts.
Speaker 1: So in a way, this would be a form of autotomy.
Speaker 1: So it would be like when a lizard that is
Speaker 1: being attacked by a predator can detach its own tail,
Speaker 1: sort of as a as a consolation prize to the predator,
Speaker 1: allowing the rest of the lizard to escape, Except in
Speaker 1: this case it doesn't even have to be living tissue.
Speaker 1: If this interpretation was correct, it would be an example
Speaker 1: of autotomy, or what you're giving away is like dead
Speaker 1: former exoskeleton material that you is not even a living
Speaker 1: part of your body anymore, right, But it's it's a
Speaker 1: perfect replica of your own anatomy because it used to
Speaker 1: be part of your own anatomy. So there is this
Speaker 1: weird genius to it. However, um, one of the our
Speaker 1: counter arguments here is that this is already a pretty
Speaker 1: well armored little caterpillar. I mean, it's a caterpillar, so
Speaker 1: you know it's not going to you know, stand up
Speaker 1: against the Sherman tank or anything. But it's very briskly,
Speaker 1: it does not look like it does not invite you
Speaker 1: to touch it or stroke it with your finger, and
Speaker 1: likewise it would potentially be a problematic meal for you know,
Speaker 1: for just a casual predator. But but the the other
Speaker 1: question is, well, okay, what about other enemies? Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: clearly an insect in this world does not have to
Speaker 1: worry just about the birds. It also has to worry
Speaker 1: about other invertebrate predators and also things like parasitic wasps.
Speaker 1: So Pedalow from the University of Sydney investigated to just
Speaker 1: see how these uh, these caterpillars with or without hats
Speaker 1: would stack up against some sort of an adversary, essentially
Speaker 1: by conducting Petrie dish death matches, removing the head hats
Speaker 1: on some specimens, leaving them on with others. So we've
Speaker 1: got bug fights for science here exactly. So Young writes
Speaker 1: about this and says, quote the bugs readily attacked, trying
Speaker 1: to drive their stabbing mouth parts into the caterpillar's heads.
Speaker 1: In response, the caterpillars thrashed, curled up, reared up, and vomited.
Speaker 1: Those with hats use their stacks to deflect or absorb
Speaker 1: the bugs attacks, leading to more protracted struggles. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: pretty good, and I love the imagery there of this,
Speaker 1: just because I feel like it just really escalated there,
Speaker 1: especially with the rearing up and vomiting. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say that's good fighting advice for anybody. If you get
Speaker 1: into a scrap, curl up, rear up, thrash, and vomit,
Speaker 1: and then use your own skulls from previous moltens to
Speaker 1: deflect your attacker. Now, the interesting thing, though, is that
Speaker 1: this sounds good, and one would be tempted to stop
Speaker 1: reading there right and say, like, all right, well, that's it,
Speaker 1: that's what they're for. But in the lab experiments, they
Speaker 1: found that the head hats didn't actually make a difference
Speaker 1: on survival rates. The predatory bug gladiators they were up
Speaker 1: against still tended to win. So PETA checked in the
Speaker 1: field and found the same thing, except that except that
Speaker 1: when they battled in groups, that seemed to make the difference.
Speaker 1: In groups, the hats double their chances of survival. And
Speaker 1: this was mainly by providing a false target for attackers.
Speaker 1: And in these cases, it seems like these this this
Speaker 1: skull hats give the caterpillars a slide advantage. But it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not gonna work against all predators, especially
Speaker 1: highly motivated predators, but it will give them an advantage
Speaker 1: if they're fighting in groups. I think something that's often
Speaker 1: true about evolution is every little bit helps. Even if
Speaker 1: something only provides a small advantage, it's often retained. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the really wonderful part about this, like ultimately the
Speaker 1: evolutionary genius of it is that they're not producing they're
Speaker 1: not expending reese hources to produce some sort of crazy
Speaker 1: shell or a toxic secretion or some sort of weird
Speaker 1: organic battle horn. They're simply making use of their own
Speaker 1: bodily leavings. They're they're they're hanging on to an already
Speaker 1: necessary byproduct of they're molting. They're just keeping it on
Speaker 1: top of their head. This is recycling. Yeah, it's essentially recycling. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and they're they're not alone. There apparently several other
Speaker 1: species of caterpillar that do the same thing, and you'll
Speaker 1: find them in India, Japan, in Europe. So if you're
Speaker 1: in those areas and you ever find one of these
Speaker 1: caterpillars that seems to have this bizarre head formation or
Speaker 1: have some sort of weird hat, that's what you're looking at. Now.
Speaker 1: In terms of human analogs for this, if we turn
Speaker 1: it back on humans, uh, we don't really see anything
Speaker 1: like this at all. I don't think we've ever seen
Speaker 1: a human build, say, a suit of armor out of
Speaker 1: their own nail clippings. Yeah. I was trying to find
Speaker 1: another good example of an animal wearing a helmet that's
Speaker 1: not generated by its own body, and I couldn't find
Speaker 1: anything exactly like that, but there are some interesting comparisons. So,
Speaker 1: of course you already mentioned the hermit crab um, but
Speaker 1: that's not a helmet. There is another thing that's not
Speaker 1: quite a helmet, but I did think was interesting. I
Speaker 1: was reading about the catius fly, which is a widely
Speaker 1: distributed order of freshwater flies. If you've ever seen a
Speaker 1: somebody go fly fishing, Robert, have you ever been fly fishing? No,
Speaker 1: but I've I've I've watched it and it's really cool looking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is the hopping motion. I think. Apparently a lot
Speaker 1: of fly fishing lures are designed on the basis of
Speaker 1: catous flies because these are widespread freshwater flies and in
Speaker 1: its larval stage, many species of catous fly will create
Speaker 1: what are known as cases that they carry around with them.
Speaker 1: These are rigid, protective structures that they wear sort of
Speaker 1: like clothes. Most examples I've seen are roughly tube shaped.
Speaker 1: They're made out of silk weaving that comes from the
Speaker 1: from the larva itself, but then it's rein four with
Speaker 1: external material like sand rocks, plant matter like wood or bark.
Speaker 1: Though it's not really a helmet, it seems like usually
Speaker 1: the head protrudes and the four limbs are used to
Speaker 1: kind of drag the case around over the body while
Speaker 1: the larva is searching for food. So imagine like a
Speaker 1: tube made out of rocks or plant matter or something
Speaker 1: held together by silk, with part of a little fly
Speaker 1: larva sticking out the front of it and crawling around.
Speaker 1: It's pretty grim looking. I don't know, it's uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know it's it's it's not an elegant design. It
Speaker 1: looks a little bit trashy. Well, speaking of trashy, we're
Speaker 1: about to get even trash here, because there are also
Speaker 1: a number of lacewing species that are known to decorate
Speaker 1: their bodies with various substances for defense against various predators
Speaker 1: like ants and other things. For example, the larva of
Speaker 1: the green lacewing, where the scientific name is Malata des ardenz.
Speaker 1: This one has an interesting adaptation. It covers its back
Speaker 1: with stuff mostly I think dead aphids and debris and uh,
Speaker 1: and then also secretions from its own body, and this
Speaker 1: forms in a way a type of defensive helmet which
Speaker 1: protects it from attacks by one of its competitors and predators,
Speaker 1: the Asian lady beetle or Harmonia exyritus. So I think
Speaker 1: that the lady beetle and the lacewing or actually competing
Speaker 1: for some of the same prey that they might both
Speaker 1: be preying on aphids, but then also the lady beetle
Speaker 1: can prey on the lacewing larva. Yeah. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: a picture of this and it's it's like some sort
Speaker 1: of weird insect necro armor. It's great. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: this is the Lord of bones here. Uh so, so
Speaker 1: this is a helmet in a way. Again, it's not
Speaker 1: exactly covering the head, but I don't know if you
Speaker 1: stretch the definition. It's a top down covering as the
Speaker 1: animal would be crawling along on a leaf, say, and
Speaker 1: you look down from above of its top part is
Speaker 1: covered by this mound of stuff. It's sort of a
Speaker 1: body helmet made out of dead a fits and other junk,
Speaker 1: and it's referred to, at least by some researchers as
Speaker 1: a trash package. I was looking at one paper. It
Speaker 1: was published in Applied Entomology and Zoology in two thousand
Speaker 1: six by Kingo Nakahira and Rio Arakawa, and this paper
Speaker 1: was experimenting on what are what are the differences in
Speaker 1: survival when these these larva are attacked by ladybugs with
Speaker 1: trash and without trash. These were the experimental conditions, or
Speaker 1: actually I think it was naked and with trash. And
Speaker 1: it turns out if you are a l a swing
Speaker 1: larva and your options are naked or with trash, it's
Speaker 1: better to be with trash because the attacks on the
Speaker 1: ones with trash were fewer in number, and also they
Speaker 1: were not as successful as quickly. I think there was
Speaker 1: a similar thing going on where the the wind they
Speaker 1: were attacked, they would survive longer if they had a
Speaker 1: trash package, sort of like what you were talking about
Speaker 1: with the caterpillars. But it looks like there's a double
Speaker 1: function here. So the trash package on this larva, it
Speaker 1: not only physically defends the body to some extent, it
Speaker 1: also discourages recognition of the lacewing larva as prey. And
Speaker 1: this mirror is the duality of some human helmets, doesn't
Speaker 1: it like, Because some helmets, of course have a practical
Speaker 1: purpose of shielding the head from physical blows, and then
Speaker 1: other helmets are largely about signaling. They're trying to create
Speaker 1: an idea or an impression in the in the mind
Speaker 1: of the enemy or the subject. Yeah, to create the
Speaker 1: idea of the fearsome warrior or the the warriors statue
Speaker 1: is larger than that of a normal human right or
Speaker 1: the warrior who has the attributes of some non human animal.
Speaker 1: So another interesting candidate for animal helmets. Again, this isn't
Speaker 1: quite a helmet. It doesn't fully work, but it gets
Speaker 1: kind of close. Is the idea of decorator crabs. And Robert,
Speaker 1: I think you and Christian actually did an episode a
Speaker 1: long time ago where you talked about decorator crabs if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, but these are crabs that will mask
Speaker 1: their bodies by adding foreign material from their environment to
Speaker 1: their exoskeletons for various defensive and camouflage reasons. And one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things is often what they put on
Speaker 1: their bodies is not just like dead foreign materials, not
Speaker 1: just like rocks or whatever. But they will sometimes put
Speaker 1: sessile stinging organisms on their backs that will will play
Speaker 1: an active role in defense, because if something comes down
Speaker 1: toward them, perhaps to prey on the crab, these things
Speaker 1: can actually sting it much in the way that if
Speaker 1: you were to run at an animal with horns, the
Speaker 1: horns could poke you. Yeah, I'd forgotten all about these
Speaker 1: these critters, but yeah, there's some fabulous photographs of them
Speaker 1: because it's it's not you know, it depends on what's
Speaker 1: available to them. Uh, Like no one set of Decorator
Speaker 1: crab bio armor is the same, and it really ultimately
Speaker 1: is like, oh you know, it ups the game, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, humans don't uh don't build armor that has
Speaker 1: some sort of living component that then attacks people for you,
Speaker 1: like this is this is something entirely from the world
Speaker 1: of decapod wonder. That's a great idea, though, what if
Speaker 1: you were to make a suit of armor that included
Speaker 1: just your body was covered with king cobras, somebody gets
Speaker 1: too close, you know, they're out of luck. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it might make functioning as a cohesive combat
Speaker 1: unit difficult as well, though, I don't know. But that's
Speaker 1: that's that's something to consider in the history of helmets,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that in our next section. All right, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should take another break and then when we
Speaker 1: come back we can talk about helmets as an invention
Speaker 1: in human history. Than all right, we're back. So the
Speaker 1: origins of body armor in general are lost to prehistory,
Speaker 1: like because ultimately they're tied up in the same movements.
Speaker 1: That's all humans clothe themselves to begin with, because ultimately,
Speaker 1: the line between body armor and clothing is very thin.
Speaker 1: For instance, if you're going bicycling and you're thinking, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I might I might fall off this bicycle.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna wear? You're gonna wear um, a
Speaker 1: tiny pair of shorts. Are you're gonna wear blue jeans? Well,
Speaker 1: I'd say in the shorts you have more mobility, But
Speaker 1: in the blue jeans, if you get into a wreck,
Speaker 1: you're less likely to scrape yourself up really bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's certainly a trade off there. But but and I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe you're not supposed to wear blue jeans
Speaker 1: when you're riding bicycles. I don't know the rules about bicycles,
Speaker 1: but you don't want your cuffs getting caught in the right,
Speaker 1: there's the cuff thing. But blue jeans in and of
Speaker 1: themselves are a kind of body armor and function that way.
Speaker 1: From time to time. I think we've all had situations
Speaker 1: where you know, you dropped something, or it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, dinner knife, I don't know. But
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we we can catch our clothing behaving
Speaker 1: as body armor, and uh, and so that's something to
Speaker 1: keep in mind when considering the history of people just
Speaker 1: taking up the hides of animals, taking up parts of
Speaker 1: part you know, what is a thick hide, but also
Speaker 1: bodily protection, taking the bodily protection of another organism and
Speaker 1: making it our own, protecting ourselves not only from uh,
Speaker 1: from the elements, but then ultimately from potential attacks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this comes through and the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of things that I think are reasonably thought of his
Speaker 1: armor aren't made out of rigid hard material like plate
Speaker 1: metal or stone or bone or anything like that. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of things that I think could reasonably
Speaker 1: be thought of his armor are just made of leather. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like one of the the examples we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: in a second comes down to essentially leather capes. And
Speaker 1: it's easy to just to just dismiss a cape because
Speaker 1: these days, because we think of a cape is doing
Speaker 1: just purely something decorative, you know, uh something. Batman has
Speaker 1: a cape, and yeah, he can do some weird things
Speaker 1: with it, but it's all we ultimately don't think about
Speaker 1: it being an important part of his body armor. What
Speaker 1: is the utility of Darth Vader's cape in a lightsaber
Speaker 1: fight used to think about that, like, wouldn't that get
Speaker 1: caught on stuff while you're running around swinging your arms
Speaker 1: at things. Well, I don't know specifically about Vader, but
Speaker 1: I think in general, I know from the Clone Wars
Speaker 1: um era stuff the cloaks that are worn by Count
Speaker 1: Dooku in general grievous are described to have like this
Speaker 1: kind of meta material armor inside, so they actually do
Speaker 1: function as as additional armor against blaster attacks. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're actually functional against lightsabers. I haven't
Speaker 1: gotten that deep into into the material, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Potentially at any rate they do. Some of the material
Speaker 1: regarding the Clone Wars does get into the idea that
Speaker 1: that one of these high tech capes is actually protective
Speaker 1: in nature. So unresolved question for you Wikipedia editors out there, Philip, Oh, Yeah,
Speaker 1: We've been spent a lot of time on Wikipedia in
Speaker 1: this household. But before we had high tech um separatist
Speaker 1: um capes to wear, you know, the first bits of
Speaker 1: high it or vegetation that ended up serving as some
Speaker 1: form of a cap or hat, these would have provided
Speaker 1: at least some protection from animal attack, human weapons, or
Speaker 1: just a general injury. Sooner or later, however, you would
Speaker 1: have certainly had the emergence of a cap or a
Speaker 1: heilm that was designed primarily for body armor. UH. Ultimately, though,
Speaker 1: one of the things about this is that since these
Speaker 1: were all inevitably made out of organic materials, items like
Speaker 1: these are just lost to history are only real knowledge
Speaker 1: of them comes from ancient depictions and ancient texts. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I was reading about this in UH in a
Speaker 1: text that I frequently turned to, UH the seventy Grade
Speaker 1: Inventions of the Ancient World, And in this one Brian
Speaker 1: and Vagan UH collaborates with Thomas Hoolett, who's an expert
Speaker 1: on on these matters, and points out that some of
Speaker 1: the earliest illustrations of body armor and of helmets dates
Speaker 1: back to the middle and third millennium b c E.
Speaker 1: On the standard of ER, a Sumerian war pan. Also,
Speaker 1: this would include illustrations from the ancient world of what
Speaker 1: the warriors of the time looked like. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, heavy cape seemed to be the body armor
Speaker 1: of choice, as depicted in in this standard, and they
Speaker 1: also appeared to be wearing helmets. In fact, well made
Speaker 1: metal helmets appear as early as twenty d b c
Speaker 1: in or six of these were actually found on the
Speaker 1: heads of guards interred with their ruler. And these were
Speaker 1: very much like the ones depicted in the standard and
Speaker 1: according to who It and Fagan, were likely a metal
Speaker 1: upgrade of the same design traditionally used UM composed entirely
Speaker 1: out of leather. Now the metal caps here they would
Speaker 1: have made they were made out of copper. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: no metal body armor was found. Uh. And again this
Speaker 1: is a burial pit, providing a plenty of examples of
Speaker 1: metal artifacts, you know, things that were like chariots and
Speaker 1: other artifacts of war. We're going to go with the
Speaker 1: ruler into the afterlife. So if there, if they're been
Speaker 1: metal body armor in use, uh, the argument is that
Speaker 1: we would see it here, but apparently, uh, the body
Speaker 1: armor technology had not reached that point yet. Like the
Speaker 1: first place we see metal uh augmenting the body is
Speaker 1: with the skull. That's really interesting. And I'm also just
Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that they were made of copper.
Speaker 1: I might be conceiving of this wrong, but okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking you're you're out in the desert marching with
Speaker 1: an army, and you're wearing a copper helmet. Copper is
Speaker 1: a great conductor of heat and heats up really fast.
Speaker 1: It seems like under a desert sun that would get
Speaker 1: amazingly hot. Yeah. Well, you know, this gets into the
Speaker 1: idea again, into the idea of when when is the
Speaker 1: helmet purely practical, and when is it all about the
Speaker 1: look of the helmet, and when is it all about
Speaker 1: the thing you become when you wear it. There's actually
Speaker 1: umh one of the tombs in this time period, the
Speaker 1: tomb of m mess A Lumdug, gives us an example
Speaker 1: of a golden helmet that is of the same style
Speaker 1: we're discussing here, and it's it's pretty interesting to me
Speaker 1: because it certainly it has the shape of a helmet,
Speaker 1: and we can see how this would go over an
Speaker 1: individual's head and provide some degree of protection. You also
Speaker 1: see that it they're a little um regular um um
Speaker 1: perforated holes around the edge of it, as if there
Speaker 1: were additional like leather tastles or some other kind of
Speaker 1: aspect to it that you know that that involved organic material.
Speaker 1: But also this helmet has ears. Yeah. It almost reminds
Speaker 1: me of the Sutton Who helmet, which has like a
Speaker 1: mustache on it. Yeah. Yeah, when we were discussing the
Speaker 1: Sudden Who helmet, just it reminded me of this. So
Speaker 1: with Sutton Who, there's a mustache and here we have
Speaker 1: ears and also, um uh it looks like hair. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really weird to imagine, like the conversation that
Speaker 1: goes into the design of this helmet, where a general
Speaker 1: or king is putting in their request for the helmet,
Speaker 1: he gets the prototype back and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait,
Speaker 1: where are the ears? Where is the mustache? I can't
Speaker 1: go out there looking like I don't have ears or
Speaker 1: a mustache? Are you crazy? This is war? That's very good.
Speaker 1: I I am. I'm thinking about like what would call
Speaker 1: I mean, so obviously this had to be difficult to
Speaker 1: produce at the time, right, I mean, it can't have been.
Speaker 1: It can't have been easy or cheap or a trivial
Speaker 1: investment of resources to make ears on these helmets. Why
Speaker 1: aren't these just the most basic utilitarian kind of domes
Speaker 1: you could imagine? Yeah, I mean, well, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: this is um the Golden helmet was not for everybody here,
Speaker 1: but uh, and certainly it's about status. But we we
Speaker 1: see also a status playing a key role in some
Speaker 1: of the earliest examples in the Greek traditions, tradition of helmets.
Speaker 1: So the history of Greek helmets is it is a
Speaker 1: fascinating area to look at because, uh, for one, on
Speaker 1: one hand, there's just there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of research and scholarship that has gone into into looking
Speaker 1: at them, and we have some, you know, wonderful examples
Speaker 1: of them that have survived either physically or in depictions.
Speaker 1: And if we go back to the late Bronze Age
Speaker 1: of my Siny in Greece roughly uh, this would have
Speaker 1: been roughly twelve fifty b C. We encounter these um,
Speaker 1: these bore tusk helmets, and these were leather caps reinforced
Speaker 1: with slices of boor tusk. I recommend everyone look up
Speaker 1: a picture of this as well, because whatever you're picturing
Speaker 1: in your head is probably not quite what the reality was.
Speaker 1: Like I was initially imagining some like weird tusk based
Speaker 1: skeletal system, but it's really you you really get the
Speaker 1: idea more of like I'm someone made an entire helmet
Speaker 1: out of these these tusks and these slices of tusks,
Speaker 1: and it creates this really an impressive looking helmet, and
Speaker 1: apparently impressive aspect of it would have been key. Uh.
Speaker 1: Tim Everson in Warfare and Ancient Greece points out that
Speaker 1: these tut slices would have easily shattered on impact, So
Speaker 1: the dot design didn't actually afford much more protection, but
Speaker 1: it was better than nothing, and an improvement over just
Speaker 1: mere leather or felt. And we also see the early
Speaker 1: advancement of adding cheek guards as well, so that the
Speaker 1: history of of helmet design is is is rife with
Speaker 1: examples of of add ons and additions and and and
Speaker 1: the designers realizing, well, okay, we can protect the head,
Speaker 1: but we also need to protect the cheek, or maybe
Speaker 1: we need something down the bridge of the nose to
Speaker 1: better protect the face. And then how about the exposed neck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like this helmet with the boar tusks. It's
Speaker 1: got sideburns basically, I mean just dangling down on the sides. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big protective side sideburns made out of boar tusk. And
Speaker 1: they say that horse hair crests were likely added as
Speaker 1: a motif to this as well, but again it probably
Speaker 1: wasn't entirely about protection, but more about signaling hunting excellence,
Speaker 1: because apparently you need to you need about forty to
Speaker 1: fifty bores uh to make one of these things, and
Speaker 1: so it in it of itself, it's signals that you
Speaker 1: are a mighty hunter, or perhaps that you know you
Speaker 1: are powerful enough that you command the resources that emerge
Speaker 1: from these hunts. Either way, a certain signal is being
Speaker 1: put forth when you donne this helmet on your head.
Speaker 1: It's kind of it's like the deer head mounted on
Speaker 1: the wall or the you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: trophy as much as a practical protection. Right and his
Speaker 1: bronze technology improved. Bronze sheeting was used in these helmets
Speaker 1: as well, generally in spots. At first, you know, you
Speaker 1: add a little bit of bronze plating here or there
Speaker 1: to make it fancier, but eventually this led to full
Speaker 1: bronze plated helmets around the eighth century BC. I was
Speaker 1: reading about all this in an article by classical archaeologist
Speaker 1: and military historian Jesse Obert, and he points out that
Speaker 1: they're there are really too. He wants of note that
Speaker 1: immediately come out of this. In the eighth century BC,
Speaker 1: So there's the the Illyrian helmet, which covered the entire head, cheeks,
Speaker 1: and even part of the throat, and it was foraged
Speaker 1: in two pieces. You can look up pictures of this.
Speaker 1: I find that it looks a lot like Magneto's helmet,
Speaker 1: at at least the version that we see in some
Speaker 1: of the recent movie movies. So the face remains open,
Speaker 1: but it does cover a lot of the rest of
Speaker 1: the head. And then the other one is the Corinthian helmet,
Speaker 1: which was foraged from a single piece of bronze, covering
Speaker 1: the face with a long nose guard and two cheek guards. However,
Speaker 1: it leaves the neck vulnerable and it was apparently known
Speaker 1: to be quite uncomfortable. It was heavy. It was you know,
Speaker 1: this big chunk of metal that goes on top of
Speaker 1: your head and weighs you down and then also impacts
Speaker 1: vision and hearing. Yeah, this has been knocking around in
Speaker 1: my mind while we've been talking about this, the in
Speaker 1: helmet design, and I guess this is true throughout the body,
Speaker 1: that you've got a trade off between the level of
Speaker 1: protection offered and then what costs come associated with that
Speaker 1: full of protection, and throughout the body, I imagine it
Speaker 1: would be things like like weight, heat, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: ease of movement, but around the head. I especially think
Speaker 1: of the limitation of the senses. Yeah. Absolutely, this is
Speaker 1: a major concern in helmet design. Uh as far as
Speaker 1: the Corinthian helmet goes Obert Wrights quote the wear was
Speaker 1: partially blinded and practically deaf when he wore the helmet.
Speaker 1: This has led some authors to speculate whether the popularity
Speaker 1: of the Corinthian helmet effectively postponed the invention of battlefield tactics,
Speaker 1: as communication on the battlefield was almost certainly impossible. That's
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. Yeah, like you want it's like go
Speaker 1: out there and kill boys, but but no discussion while
Speaker 1: you're out there, because nobody can hear a damn thing.
Speaker 1: Um you know that would that would impact the way
Speaker 1: you carry out your battles and and how and to
Speaker 1: what extent you could even have a flexible battle plan.
Speaker 1: And and you know there's that that famous saying that
Speaker 1: like all what all battle lands fail when the enemy
Speaker 1: is actually encountered, So you know that would that would
Speaker 1: really limit what you could do? I would think, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it also makes me think back to the ears.
Speaker 1: The ears on the Mesopotamian helmet. Yes, if you look
Speaker 1: at pictures of that, not only is there a motif
Speaker 1: of the ear, there appears to be an ear hole.
Speaker 1: So in that tradition they had realized, Okay, this looks great,
Speaker 1: but I can't hear a damn thing out of this.
Speaker 1: Somebody cut some ear holes in my fake ears on
Speaker 1: my golden helmet. Yeah, I wonder about both of those. Actually,
Speaker 1: So the holes possibly for hearing, but also the rendering
Speaker 1: of the you know, the external part of the ear.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that could almost be like painting eye
Speaker 1: spots on yourself. Yeah, letting letting your fellow soldiers know
Speaker 1: that you can hear, or even enemies like this, this
Speaker 1: is a dangerous opponent because they can actually hear what's
Speaker 1: being said by others. They have enhanced sensor. They can
Speaker 1: hear me coming if I'm trying to sneak up behind them.
Speaker 1: So so I found that super interesting. I I, for one,
Speaker 1: had never really thought that much of out the the
Speaker 1: impact of the senses of when wearing these helmets. I
Speaker 1: mean to a certain extent, I guess thinking about like
Speaker 1: full plate male military nights. You know, it becomes obvious
Speaker 1: when you look at something like that that this is.
Speaker 1: It's like wearing a diving suit and riding a horse
Speaker 1: into battle. You're gonna have you're gonna you're gonna be
Speaker 1: more powerful in some respects, but they're gonna be some
Speaker 1: severer constraints on what you can do and how you
Speaker 1: can take in the battlefield. Now, another aspect to to
Speaker 1: this design was that they were also expensive. Eventually, cheat
Speaker 1: guards and uh in a rear were extended to rest
Speaker 1: on the shoulders, and this was allowed the helmet to
Speaker 1: cover the neck and throat a bit more, but also
Speaker 1: dissipate the helmets weight um. Also of note, larger ear
Speaker 1: holes were added eventually to allow battlefield communication, which is sensible, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you can add the up some holes there for
Speaker 1: the ears, you know, I guess you could look at
Speaker 1: them as stabbing holes if someone's really good at what
Speaker 1: they're doing. But uh, but like what's the trade off?
Speaker 1: Do you your ears absolutely protected and useless or do
Speaker 1: you want some holes there and actually be able to
Speaker 1: hear what other people are saying? Yeah, I guess it
Speaker 1: depends on what kind of combat you're thinking about. I mean,
Speaker 1: I imagine I'm not a combat historian or anything. But
Speaker 1: I imagine in a lot of archaic battle there's a
Speaker 1: there's a huge amount of sort of like gross motions,
Speaker 1: the thrusting of large spears into groups of people, the
Speaker 1: swinging of swords and axes, and a little hole on
Speaker 1: the ear might be less of a problem. You're not
Speaker 1: really imagining somebody's gonna come at you with a needle
Speaker 1: right now. Beginning in the sixth century b c e.
Speaker 1: The chell city and helmet pops up, and this brings
Speaker 1: improve visibility and comfort while also providing protection. And we
Speaker 1: subsequently see the evolution of of various forms of helmets
Speaker 1: in the Greek tradition, uh the idea, Ionian helmet, the
Speaker 1: attic helmet, and others. And these were all about tweaking
Speaker 1: defensive and or tactical aspects of the previous models. So
Speaker 1: just you know, continuous tinkering with the design to figure
Speaker 1: out what offers the best hection, what is the most comfortable,
Speaker 1: what allows the individual to to utilize their senses on
Speaker 1: the battlefield, all of these concerns, and then also they
Speaker 1: all have variant they all look cool. I'll say that
Speaker 1: as well, Like there's a certain coolness to the design,
Speaker 1: So that's also inevitably part of the design evolution of these,
Speaker 1: Like you still want your warriors to look fearsome on
Speaker 1: the battlefield, so I will say none of these examples
Speaker 1: we're getting to look as cool as the leather helmets
Speaker 1: and Planet of the Vampires. Yes, those are pretty good.
Speaker 1: Um they they they essentially what they could. They cover
Speaker 1: everything but the face there their minimalists. They extend up
Speaker 1: from the dracula collar of the space suit, but they
Speaker 1: do get a lot of coverage there, and from from
Speaker 1: just a pure padding standpoint, they seem to like they
Speaker 1: would probably do a good job. And I don't know
Speaker 1: we I don't know in that film if we actually
Speaker 1: get any kind of glimpse inside them or a field
Speaker 1: for their structure. They have some sort of internal skeleton
Speaker 1: applied as well, I don't recall. I think at some
Speaker 1: point some of the characters take the hoods off. But
Speaker 1: that's about it now. Of course, this is just the
Speaker 1: Greek tradition that we've alluded to here. There are other
Speaker 1: um lineages of helmets and body armor that we see
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world. Um for instance, so
Speaker 1: we see scaled armor helms in China during the Warring
Speaker 1: States period of four five through to one b C.
Speaker 1: And and these are quite interesting. It keeps it's very
Speaker 1: much in keeping with the predominant body armor of the
Speaker 1: time as well the idea of having depending on this
Speaker 1: sort of scale male approach to armoring the body and
Speaker 1: less dependence on single large plates. And then um, the
Speaker 1: Manoan civilization of Creed used a basic helmet style as
Speaker 1: early as um Fo dred BC that would later, among
Speaker 1: other European designs such as those of the Celts, influence
Speaker 1: the iconic shape of the Roman Monte Farina style helmet.
Speaker 1: And generally these are are conical with a raised central
Speaker 1: knob with net guards and cheek plates. Oh okay, now
Speaker 1: with with this style of helmet, this is actually getting
Speaker 1: more into what you're going to see coming through into
Speaker 1: the modern age. Yeah, yeah, it's um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty straightforward helmet with a bit of a bit
Speaker 1: of a cap bill at the front which would have
Speaker 1: i guess you know, shaded the eyes a bit but
Speaker 1: also protected the eyes, and then you have some cheek
Speaker 1: plates as well. But this is this is generally when
Speaker 1: you see depictions of the Roman republic Um. You know,
Speaker 1: centurions and whatnot. This is generally what you see on
Speaker 1: their head, but not like the big horse hair adornments
Speaker 1: and stuff with all the fluff on top. Right. But
Speaker 1: but like you know, I guess the thing about any
Speaker 1: of these helmets is you can always add fluff to
Speaker 1: them if you want. You can always doll it up
Speaker 1: a little bit. So thus far wrapping it up here
Speaker 1: for this episode, anyway, we've discussed you know, the basic
Speaker 1: idea of what a helmet is, where that idea comes from,
Speaker 1: and to the extent to which we can really consider
Speaker 1: it a human phenomenon. And uh, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot more to explore here. So I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: come back in a second episode. We we'll discuss some
Speaker 1: more unique helmets from history. Uh, perhaps some findings on
Speaker 1: just how effective some helmets have been. Uh So just
Speaker 1: strap in, strap your helmet on, and stick with us.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. In the meantime, if you like to
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind,
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