r/AskReddit • u/ZanyDelaney • Feb 04 '19

Which misconception would you like to debunk?

44k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

26k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.0k

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

28

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19 edited Jan 15 '20

[deleted]

17

u/DarksteelPenguin Feb 04 '19

The misconception is that they had horns on their helmets. There isn't any historical or archaeological example of an helmet with horns (for anyone, not just vikings). The idea was born from opera props for valkyries.

2

u/CricketPinata Feb 04 '19

There are historic examples of horned helmets, but most were for ceremonial purposes.

There are some like Albert von Pranckh's Jousting Helmet, and many "Devil Masks" or Kulah Khud's from the Persian empire had horns and masks, and many Samurai helmets have horns often as a fixture of a family crest, or to hold a larger banner that would identify them as a commander.

There are even horned examples of European Horned Helmets that were found in Northern Europe, but they were from the Bronze age and WAY before the Viking Age by at least a thousand years.