Description

The thin bronze sheet was originally attached to the right cheek flap of an elaborately decorated rider's helmet. A simple bead with a staggered notch frames the image field of the fragment, which shows a bearded and long-haired head. This head probably represents a barbarian or a centaur, a mythical hybrid of human and animal.

The depiction of defeated barbarians or mythological battle scenes were certainly intended to allude to the military superiority of the Romans. It is easy to imagine that one of the riders of the Cohors Secunda, which was stationed at the Saalburg, wore this helmet at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.