Our iron man
Gladiator helmet from Pompeii on display at Science Center
Imagine fighting for your life with 25 pounds of metal on your head. That was often the case for gladiators of the ancient Roman Empire, who were forced to fight wild animals and other warriors for the entertainment of citizens.
The Carnegie Science Center has added a Secutor gladiator helmet from A.D. 79 to its “Pompeii: The Exhibition.” It will be on display Saturday, joining 180 other artifacts from the once thriving city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
The helmet and the other artifacts came from the collection of the Naples National Archaeological Museum in Italy. The helmet was sent to Pittsburgh to be restored before it was put on display.
“They discovered we had a world-renowned conservator in Pittsburgh,” explained Connie George, senior director of marketing and community relations at the science center on the North Shore.
Conservator Michael Belman did the restoration. He works with his wife, Chantal Bernicky, who is also a restoration specialist. It took them several days to restore the helmet, he said. It’s made from cast iron and copper alloy that was heated, hammered and riveted together, he said.
“Each step requires drying time or setting time so there was a bit of hurry up and wait with the treatment,” he said.
“The helmet does have a slightly odd shape — a little deformed like it was smushed a bit,” he noted. “You are aware it was buried, but why would it deform like that?
“When I put the fragments back on, I could see that is essentially the side it was laying on. It was face-down on that left side.”
He learned a lot about the gladiator who once wore the helmet.
“The Secutor was the name of the character who wore that helmet. He was armored and fought the Retiarius, who only had a trident and a net and was always backing up,” Belman said. “So he was always jogging after his opponent and for that reason the helmet was probably bolted to the shoulder armor.
“The Retiarius was very agile and could keep his distance, while the Secutor was weighed down with his armor,” he said.
“That was the point of the competition: You had a guy who could barely move and one that could jump around with almost no armor.”
The reason the helmet is rounded so the net of the Retiarius would not snag it, he said. The eye holes are very small openings.
“If the eye holes were slits, like you see in some armor, the guy with the trident could make a jab for the Secutor’s eyes, and he might be able to get the trident points into the slits. But these holes prevent that,” said Belman.
It is unlikely that the gladiator was wearing the helmet during the eruption. It was probably in a storage room, he said.
“What people don’t realize is the toxic gas and ash from the pyroclastic flow travels at the speed of sound,” noted George.
“It is gas and ash and rocks and that material is heavier than air, so that is why it fell like an avalanche that blanketed the town,” added Belman.
The pyroclastic flow killed people quickly and is the reason so much has been recovered in exactly the spot it came to rest nearly 2,000 years ago. Buried by ash for centuries, the remains of Pompeii were discovered in 1748. Among the items on display are plaster casts made from the cavities in the ash left by the bodies of its victims.
The Pompeii exhibit opened in October and continues through April 24.