We recreated a Gladiator Helmet. Here's what we learnt.

Michael Neilson has worked as a Replication Specialist at The British Museum for 29 years. He has created copies of cuneiform tablets, the Rosetta Stone, and many other notable museum objects. For the “Gladiators of Britain” exhibition, he was tasked with creating a reconstruction of The Hawkedon Helmet, the only Roman Gladiator helmet to be found in Britain. Watch Mike break down the process of crafting a helmet that includes various techniques that would have been available to ancient Roman metalworkers. By studying clues found on an ancient gladiator helmet, he attempts to recreate it as it might have actually looked 2,000 years ago. 00:00 Intro 01:22 Assessing The Hawkedon Helmet 04:21 Shaping the bronze sheet 06:57 Annealing of metal 08:00 Unusual shape of the helmet 08:48 Assessing the brow bar 10:15 Prototyping the brow bar 10:35 Creating a mould 10:57 Casting the brow bar 12:27 Making the eye guards 13:28 Trim of the visor 14:54 Making the rivet 15:36 Tinning the bronze 17:18 The complete helmet Special thanks to The Crucible Foundry for their support on this project. You can see the original Hawkedon Helmet, along with the reconstructed face guard, at the British Museum Partnership Exhibition ‘Gladiators of Britain,’ on display at Grosvenor Museum, Chester, from 20 September, followed by Tullie, Carlisle from 7 February 2026. Find out more here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/gladiators Image attributions: Gladitorial Helmet, Pompei @ 01:52 - Gladiatorial Helmet. Object is part of the collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli House of the Gladiators @ 09:37 - Carole Raddato (2015). CC-BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons Collared Slaves @ 13:15 - Relief with three registers of slaves in chains and animals © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford