7. Horned Helmets

Though horned helmets are usually associated with Vikings, they rarely, if ever, wore them. Instead, such helmets were donned by various groups during the Bronze and Iron Ages. According to Homer’s Iliad, Greeks wore horned helmets.

Archaeological evidence indicates deities in the eastern Mediterranean were depicted with horned helmets, and the so-called “Waterloo Helmet” traces to the first or second century BC.

Discovered along the River Thames in England, the “Waterloo Helmet” is believed to have been used for ceremonial purposes (horns, after all, have no practical purpose on a battlefield). Yet 1st-century BC Roman historian Diodorus Siculus does describe Celts wearing “bronze helmets which have large embossed figures standing out from them and give an appearance of great size to those who wear them; for in some cases horns are attached to the helmet so as to form a single piece…”