Yet depictions like these are inaccurate - or at least an oversimplification. Even the American football team the Minnesota Vikings proudly display horns on their mascot. Popular comics like Asterix and Obelisk and Hägar the Horrible depicted Vikings this way. The idea of Vikings wearing elaborate headgear has endured since Doepler first suggested it. Wikimedia Commons The Minnesota Vikings mascot wears horn on its helmets. Today, it’s hard to imagine these warriors without their iconic armor. Yet despite all the evidence to the contrary, the myth about the Norse warriors’ helmets has taken on a life of its own. But they wouldn’t be much help in combat. In other words, these horns might be frightening to behold. Such helmets would also have caused problems on board the warships, where space was already at a premium.” It’s “possible that such headgear was worn for display or for cultic purposes,” the National Museum of Denmark noted.īut “in a battle situation, horns on a helmet would get in the way. But they might have adorned themselves with horns for other purposes. actually wore horns on their heads during battle. Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Vikings from 800 to 1050 C.E. The famous “ Golden Horn” artifact seems to depict warriors like these. Depictions of the Berserkers, for example - fearsome warriors known for taking drugs and fighting nude - date back to 400 B.C.E. Other depictions of horned headgear in Nordic history predate the Vikings. Museum of Cultural History, Oslo The horned figures in the Oseberg tapestry (this is a watercolor reproduction) may be Norse gods like Odin. Though parts of them have been discovered in places like Denmark, archaeologists have found just one preserved such helmet. In fact, hardly any Viking helmets - horned or otherwise - have ever been found. But other times they’re shown as bareheaded - and not wearing a helmet at all. In contemporaneous depictions, Vikings often are depicted as wearing simple round headgear. Stories quickly spread of their violence, their lack of “civilization,” and their flagrant disregard for Christianity.Īccounts of the first recorded Viking attack in 793, for example, describe how a monastery in Lindisfarne was “spattered with the blood of the priests of God despoiled of all its ornaments,” and how the Vikings “trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the street.”Ĭlearly, the invaders were something to be feared - but did they wear horned Viking helmets? Then, disparate groups of Nordic warriors started attacking cities and towns in Europe. The Viking era lasted from about 800 until around 1050 C.E. Notably, they do not have horned helmets. Public Domain A twelfth-century depiction of Nordic warriors invading England.
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