Cu pletele în vânt pe vreme de ploaie. Aveau sau nu coifuri războinicii lui Decebal?
With the hair in the wind during the rain. Did Decebal's warriors wear helmets?

Summary/Abstract: The present endeavour originates in the lack or the sporadic use of the helmet during the activities of re-enactment, that have as a subject the epoch of the Dacian Kingdom. Originated in a lack of archaeological findings of such pieces of military equipment, the helmets are almost totally absent from the panoply of Dacian epoch's re-enacted characters. Although some of the least known weapons of those times, it is unlikely that the helmets would miss from the Dacian warriors' equipment, especially during the final period of the Kingdom.The main documentation source is represented by the funerary inventories of the aristocracy, the only social class, whose military arsenal was satisfyingly studied. Their tombs, through practiced rites and rituals partially shed a light over their lifestyle. In a way, in the funerary space, the community has reconstructed, as much as possible, what the deceased was during his life, whether we are talking about function, position or wealth. Among the weapons of these warriors, the helmets had a special importance, given by practical utility and by the identity function that they accumulated. Despite these considerations, the helmets, in close relationship with the funerary discretion of the elites from the Dacian period, are exceptional findings in the elite's tombs, rare themselves. Even if they were expensive, hard to reproduce, they should be visible in the funerary inventory, mirror of a panoply from during the life of a warrior. About this situation, the Romanian historiography did not arrive at a consensus yet. Several more clarifications bring the images of Trajan's Column, where numerous Dacian helmets were revealed, used by both the warrior aristocracy and by the inferior military structures, the enigmatic comati.And yet, the historical file of these pieces of equipment is still relatively solidified, so that in almost a decade of activities of re-enactment I had the opportunity and, we might say, the obligation to produce and wear helmets, to test their utility during the simulated fights between different groups of re-enacted warriors. They might say that a helmet was an indispensable piece of weaponry, in any moment of the battle, being extremely useful for both the protection against all types of projectile, and against the offensive weapons of the opponents.The helmets could not have missed from the endowment of professional warriors, as it is the sketched image of Decebal's Army. Therefore, there is no reason for which they might have missed from the amateur's equipment of living history, not only from the desire to respect the historical reality, but also from practical considerations, based on the frequency of accidents during these events. Therefore, the historians and archaeologists are those who are left to offer morphological and ornamental details for these pieces of equipment.

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