“Unearthed: A 400-Year-Old Military Helmet Reveals Secrets of Hungary’s Fiercest Medieval Battles!”
Archaeologists Excavate The Historic Visegrád Citadel
Patrick Down/FlickrVisegrád Citadel is located on a hill overlooking the Danube River north of Budapest.
Visegrád Citadel has a long and bloody history. Originally built in the 13th century by King Béla IV of Hungary, the castle was meant to act as a fortress to protect the town of Visegrád from Mongol invasions.
In the 14th century, the castle was converted to a royal residence for the Angevin kings of Hungary, a royal house originally founded in France. For the next three centuries, the castle would be expanded and renovated until the outbreak of the Fifteen Years’ War, a violent conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburgs, who ruled Hungary at the time.
Because of the castle’s storied history, officials have recently set out to restore and preserve it for visitors. While excavating a filled-in moat as part of these renovations, archaeologists uncovered a treasure trove of military artifacts.
Their discoveries included small arms, cannonballs, and arrowheads, all of which were heavily damaged from battle. However, their most remarkable find was a 400-year-old helmet that was likely worn by a soldier who fought in the Fifteen Years’ War.
Nemzeti Régészeti Intézet/FacebookThe spot where archaeologists discovered the helmet.
“The helmet, which is popular among the infantry mostly equipped with handguns or pikes, was most likely part of the armament of a Habsburg mercenary who was buried at the latest after the Fifteen Years’ War,” Hungary’s National Archaeological Institute wrote in a Facebook post.
