Viking Headgear

[Gooding]

After a good conversation on the chatbox, MarcvSS, Brynhild and

I decided to bring this topic up in a thread. This topic is relevent to

Old Norse headgear. Did the Vikings actually have horns fixed to their

helmets, as is shown in paintings, or were those horns embellishmets

added later as an artistic license?

[Beorn]

Did the Norse warriors who were referred to as Vikings actually have horns on their helmets, or wings?

No.


Was this perhaps a dramatization by the artists of the Romantic Movement to emphasize the ferocity for which these Vikings were famous?

Probably.


I rather choose option 2 because of the motifs involved. Did the artists fuse the motifs of Cernunnos, the ancient Celtic horned god of fertility with the image of the fierce Northern warrior to produce horned helmets?

They most likely took an artistic license from the fact the Celts wore horned helmets.


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eFESZhWXX-A/SVa5di5-wbI/AAAAAAAAAc0/Opm58xALhWU/s400/795px-Celtic_Horned_Helmet_I-IIBC_British-Museum.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b296/lawlessjohn/gaesataefig.jpg




Practically, helmets with horns on them would be worse than useless and as MarcvSS pointed out, could be easily used as a weapon by the enemy. Thoughts on this matter?

When a grown man with a short sword and spear comes flying at you in order to kill you, cut off your head and use you to decorate his shrine, the last thing in his mind, and yours, is grabbing his helmet.

[Jägerstaffel]

http://product.images.fansedge.com/33-49/33-49652-F.jpg

[Brynhild]

Here is one article I found:


The Viking Horned Helmet

The modern image of a Viking can be described as a large and buffed man with battle gears complete with a horned helmet. The horned helmet is a popular icon related to Vikings. It has been a symbol for power although it is believed to be mainly used as a head protection during a battle. The horns that are in Viking helmets are basically considered as an adornment. During 789 A.D., horns are considered as a decoration in most part of Western Europe. Horns are believed to be a symbol of virility, potency and masculinity of the bull.

Horned helmets are actually of Celtic influence. Some bronzed helmets buried in Visko, Denmark in 1976 were related to Vikings and shows a pair of curved horn adornments. This particular relic may have been used in ceremonial offerings.

The actual evidences of the existence of horned helmets are often related to ceremonial events and not during the Viking's actual warfare. There are no exact proofs and evidences that horned helmets are used by Vikings during their raids and battles.

A typical helmet used during battles is a simple hemispherical headgear with a face guard. To date, actual Viking horned helmets are yet to be discovered. Helmets are believed to be used by Viking chieftains who also wore armours. Other historians also suggest that chieftains wore horned helmets as a symbol of their rank.

During the Bronze Age, there were evidences of the existence of horned helmets. A cauldron was discovered in Zealand, Denmark that shows an image of a helmet with stag antlers as horns. This relic is also believed to be related to ceremonial sacrifices.

A portrayal of a Viking with a horned helmet and spears was illustrated in a 5th AD metalwork which originated from the Swedish coast. The image was thought to be a Viking complete with battle gears with a horned helmet who worshipped their god in a ceremonial dance.

Figures of horned helmets continue to appear in a lot of relics that are mostly found in regions of England. Proofs and figures of the existence of horned helmets are commonly discovered in burial sites, cauldrons, decorative plates, tapestries and amulets.

Source (http://www.family-ancestry.co.uk/history/vikings/horned_helmets/)

This Article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_helmet) will suggest (and a few website links seem to corroborate this) that horned helmets were worn for ceremonial purposes. I'm no expert but it would make sense, as horned helmets would've been useless in battle. As for the legends, they seemed to be meshed from Greek and Celtic folklore by the scholars from that time.

[MarcvSS]

You know... I brought up the idea of making this thread.

Now, at this point, I cant come up with anything good to post. (16 hours of work will do that to you)

So I'll sit and read for now.

[Gooding]

SOURCE:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2189/did-vikings-really-wear-horns-on-their-helmets

QUOTE:
December 7, 2004
Dear Straight Dope:

Did Vikings really have horns on their helmets?

— Thad in San Antonio




No self-respecting Viking warrior ever wore a horned helmet in battle--they weren't that dumb. As anyone who has done any slaughtering can tell you, horns provide nothing more than a good handhold to steady your work while you're slitting someone's throat. Nor did Viking warriors wear wings on their helmets, as they were commonly depicted doing before the horned image took over. Popular belief to the contrary isn't entirely baseless, though. Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that priests among the Norse and earlier Germanic peoples did wear headgear with horns (but not wings) in religious ceremonies. Furthermore, the ancient Celts wore helmets with wings (or other weird stuff), also for ceremonial purposes. The use of horned headdress in religious ceremonies wasn't limited to Germans and Celts--there are dozens of examples from around the world dating back to the earliest civilizations.

Who started the idea that Vikings wore a pair of horns on their helmets in battle? Ancient Greek and Roman writers got the ball rolling. They described the inhabitants of northern Europe wearing all manner of outlandish things on their heads. For example, Plutarch described the Cimbri, the likely ancestors of at least some of the Vikings, wearing "helmets, made to resemble the heads of wild beasts," horns included. Diodorus Siculus had earlier described a similar habit of the Gauls, who were a Celtic rather than Germanic people. The Gauls, he writes, wore winged helmets or helmets with horns or antlers or whole animals attached. (The tradition continues apace; I've met Celts with all kinds of crazy stuff coming out of their heads, mostly but not entirely limited to the one day each year when green beer miraculously flows like water.)

Archaeological finds, all but one of which date from the ninth century B.C. to about the seventh century C.E., back them up on the horn thing, but only to a degree. The ancients implied that such helmets were used in battle, but a ceremonial use is more likely. The finds consist mostly of images from rock carvings, horn carvings, coins, engraved metal objects, etc. A few actual horned helmets have been found; most are Germanic helmets from Denmark, but one is a Celtic model dredged from the Thames. None of these ceremonial horned helmets match the stereotypical image of a metal helmet with ox horns attached. For example, two Bronze Age horned helmets unearthed at Viksø, Denmark sport long twisting horns made of metal. The Thames helmet to my mind suggests an ancient priest who got drunk enough to think it was a good idea to wear Madonna's cone bra on his head.

Even the latest of these archaological finds, with one exception, are a century or two shy of the Viking Age proper, which is somewhat arbitrarily reckoned to have started in A.D. 793, the year of the Viking raid on Lindisfarne. The exception is the horn-wearing man depicted on the ninth-century Oseberg tapestry discovered in Norway a hundred years ago. It may represent a continuation of the pre-Viking ceremonial use of horned headdress by the Norse. That wouldn't be too surprising; Norse culture didn't radically change in 793. On the other hand, it could be a new custom imported from the east. Herodotus reported that the Thracians, the prototypical steppe barbarians to the ancient Greeks of his day, wore horned helmets. It's possible the Vikings encountered something of the same sort in their travels through Russia or elsewhere in the east.

The first image of horned helmets to be found was an engraved horn from Gallehus, Denmark, discovered in 1734. However, European artists had begun portraying ancient (pre-Viking) Germans wearing horned helmets as early as 1616, on the authority of the ancient writers. Since the ancients weren't clear on the ceremonial purpose of the helmets, they were often used in battle scenes. The use of horned helmets in German heraldry during the Middle Ages can probably be attributed to the same authors.

How did the priests' headdress get transferred to intrepid Viking warriors? Blame artists, not archaeologists or historians. The Viking got his horned and winged helmets during the Romantic period (late 1700s to mid-1800s). Romantic artists rejected the constraints of Classicism and started to explore, among other themes, ancient Germanic and Celtic history and mythology. These artists weren't always careful about the details and sometimes depicted a hodgepodge of Germanic, Celtic, and classical motifs. (Would you believe a Viking driving a chariot?) Romantic artists gave Vikings Celtic-style winged helmets before they got horned ones.

In the 1820s the Swedish artist Gustav Malmström was the first to give horns to Vikings, as opposed to pre-Viking Germans like the Cimbri. He did so in illustrations for an edition of Frithiof's Saga (1820-25). This Swedish poem by Esaias Tegnér was based on a poor excuse for an Old Icelandic prose saga written at a time when the once great saga tradition was beginning its long sad descent into what E. V. Gordon called the "turgid monotony of the fourteenth-century tales of kings, queens, and knights in fantastic adventure." Tegnér's sappy reworking was unaccountably popular and influential around the world. The various English translations were largely responsible for popularizing the word Viking in English.

Where did Malmström get the idea for a horned helmet? By the time the poem came out, plenty of archaeological evidence indicated that horned headgear was used in ancient times, although it still wasn't clear that such helmets were purely ceremonial and may have disappeared before the Viking era. At any rate, Malmström's idea didn't catch on right away. While the illustrations for some English translations of the poem also featured horned helmets, the winged variety remained the norm for several more decades.

Horned helmets were given a boost by amateur archaeologist Axel Holmberg, who in the 1840s and '50s assigned to the Viking Age a rock carving that depicted men wearing what he claimed were iron helmets with attached ox horns. In fact the carving dated to the Bronze Age (no later than 500 BC), and only Holmberg could discern what material the horns were made of. His ideas didn't do much to popularize the idea among artists or the public, but quite a few archaeologists and historians were hornswoggled for a while. The professionals eventually came to their senses, but by then horned helmets had become common on Viking heads in art.

Richard Wagner is often credited with popularizing the idea of horned helmets, although he never wrote an opera about Vikings. His operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, the four parts of which were first produced between 1869 and 1876, depicted Germanic gods and heroes in the mythical past, not during the historical Viking era. Most opera fans neither knew nor cared that the Viking Age didn't start until A.D. 793, though, and some apparently assumed all barbarian warriors in northern Europe wore pointy headgear. Wagner had also used a horned helmet in the original production of Tristan und Isolde in 1865. This is even further from Vikings, because the story is a Celtic, not a Germanic, legend.

In Wagner's operas, horned helmets are now most closely associated with the Valkyries, but as originally staged the Valkyries wore helmets with wings. (The Valkyries didn't get horny until Wagner died.) The only major figure in the whole cycle who wore a horned helmet in the early productions was Hunding. Those who have somehow managed to stay awake through the entire four-hour production of Die Walküre may remember Hunding as the boor who objected to his wife sleeping with her brother. Wagner and his costume and set designer Carl Emil Doepler probably borrowed the idea not from the few scattered images of Vikings wearing horned helmets, but from the costumes in stage plays about ancient pre-Viking Germans.

The horned helmet didn't immediately replace the winged helmet. The trend grew slowly until the early 1890s, when the one started horning in on the other's territory, especially in German and English illustrated children's books about Vikings. After that it was bully for horns while wings just fluttered. Winged helmets finally crashed about the time of the First World War and weren't seen much thereafter until reincarnated for Thor and Asterix, a comic rebirth if I ever saw one.

If Viking warriors didn't wear winged or horned helmets in battle, what did they wear? Many probably didn't wear helmets at all. Writing about seven centuries before the Viking era, the Roman historian Tacitus says most Germans didn't. But we needn't take his word for it. Contemporary Viking era artwork shows roughly half of Vikings in battle bareheaded, while the rest wear unremarkable dome-shaped or conical helmets. Few helmets have survived from the Viking Age, probably because the rank-and-file wore leather helmets that didn't last. The few metal ones that have been discovered presumably belonged to the richest Vikings. Some are iron "spectacle" helmets, so called because they have bronze eye-and-nose guards that look a bit like a pair of glasses except that there's nothing at all nerdy about them. I'm willing to bet that anybody who called their wearers "four-eyes" was soon made to see the light--or stars.

Further reading

"The Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet" by Roberta Frank in International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber (2000), edited by Michael Dallapiazza et al.

"The Origin of the Imaginary Viking" by Johnni Langer in Viking Heritage Magazine, December 2002

— bibliophage


Staff Reports are written by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, Cecil's online auxiliary. Though the SDSAB does its best, these columns are edited by Ed Zotti, not Cecil, so accuracywise you'd better keep your fingers crossed. END OF QUOTE

[Beorn]

Where does this belief of one grabbing the others helmet come from? Unless you have actually faced an opponent one-on-one with a weapon in your hand and realised how occupied you are by simply ensuring yourself doesn't receive a blow or nick to the body, will it be recognised that what you wear on your head plays no part in the result. Unless you are on your knees, in which case you are defeated and should expect to receive your fate.

[Gooding]

Where does this belief of one grabbing the others helmet come from? Unless you have actually faced an opponent one-on-one with a weapon in your hand and realised how occupied you are by simply ensuring yourself doesn't receive a blow or nick to the body, will it be recognised that what you wear on your head plays no part in the result. Unless you are on your knees, in which case you are defeated and should expect to receive your fate.

True. I never thought of that.

[MarcvSS]

Where does this belief of one grabbing the others helmet come from? Unless you have actually faced an opponent one-on-one with a weapon in your hand and realised how occupied you are by simply ensuring yourself doesn't receive a blow or nick to the body, will it be recognised that what you wear on your head plays no part in the result. Unless you are on your knees, in which case you are defeated and should expect to receive your fate.

Okay I've never grabbed a helmet ofcourse, but in every fight I focus on the head...

Headbutting comes directly to mind...

Cutting ones throat is a good second guess. Hornes would in that sit be very handy.

[MarcvSS]

Okay here some pieces of info/opinion I found on SF about the subject...


No self-respecting Viking warrior ever wore a horned helmet in battle--they weren't that dumb. As anyone who has done any slaughtering can tell you, horns provide nothing more than a good handhold to steady your work while you're slitting someone's throat. Nor did Viking warriors wear wings on their helmets, as they were commonly depicted doing before the horned image took over. Popular belief to the contrary isn't entirely baseless, though. Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that priests among the Norse and earlier Germanic peoples did wear headgear with horns (but not wings) in religious ceremonies. Furthermore, the ancient Celts wore helmets with wings (or other weird stuff), also for ceremonial purposes. The use of horned headdress in religious ceremonies wasn't limited to Germans and Celts--there are dozens of examples from around the world dating back to the earliest civilizations.
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhornedhelmet.html




Where Did The Horns Come From ???

By: Eric Anderson

One of the biggest battles in re-creating Viking history is the myth of the horned helmets. This image has stuck in millions of peoples minds for the last century thanks to faulty teaching of the history and the famed 'History by Hollywood'. Whenever one goes to a Scandinavian event you can expect to see the plastic horned helms on sale because the average person seems to expect to see this myth wherever they go. But how did it come about?

Back at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century there had been a rise in the interest in Vikings that started social clubs and organizations. These groups were not historical groups but rather fraternal groups or even drinking clubs taking advantage of the image of the drinking orgies that had been placed on the Vikings. Members often posed for photos while wearing horned or winged helms. This image seemed to be fed off of the popular culture of its day with Richard Wagners' massive opera 'Ring des Nibelungen'. Burning into the masses was the ridiculous costumes worn by the performers that became to many fact that Vikings had worn horned or winged helms. Now granted that the opera was based on the German version of the Norse Volsung Saga, but the image stuck. As time went along, this image entered pulp fiction, comics, movies and television. But it is important to note that the most famous Viking movie 'The Vikings' with Kirk Douglas did not take this image up, which scores points with the costume directors.

In all of the art from the Viking era, from carvings to tapestries, only one image from that time had an image of a viking with a horned like helm. This tapestry appears to show a caravan of people with a man at the lead with a horned like helm holding two spears in one hand and a sword in the other. A theory on this could be that what one is looking at is a caravan being led by a priest of Odin considering that the horns on the helm appears to be carved into two ravens (Hugin and Munin) or even possibly a representation from the Ynglinga Saga from the Heimskringla. In that saga it speaks of Odin being a great chief who leads his people back to Europe from Asia. If that is so, them maybe the 'carved horns' are not such, but rather an image of the ravens sitting atop of the helm. In the sagas it speaks of Odin letting the ravens go to travel the world to gather news, then return to speak into his ears what they had seen. From this it can be argued that there may be a possibility that horned helms did exist, but for religious purposes and not for combat.

If this image is a source for historians to prove that Viking had horns, then it is greatly flawed. An example is such: A high level Bishop passes away and the church buries him in the full regalia of his post. After that time the world enters into another Dark Age because of a great disaster. Most of the records that we have is destroyed and our way of life has been lost. After a 1000 to maybe 1500 years passes and civilization rises up to the level we have today and archeologists discover the tomb of the before mentioned bishop. They find the body in a preserved state and after examining it they come to the conclusion that people in the late 20th and early 21st century all worn red robes with tall funny hats. Before you know it, groups are started that recreated our era with people dressing this way as an example of how we dressed. Believe it it or not, many conclusions have come about with less.

As it goes we have much more information on how the Vikings lived, and a large amount of artifacts from that era... ...and no helms with horns have been found.
http://www.vikingage.com/vac/horns.html

[Anthropos]

According to Dick Harrison and Kristina Svensson, who wrote Vikingaliv, horned 'viking helmets' is a modern folkish-romantic thing with no basis in history.

http://www.sfbok.se/asp/artikel.asp?VolumeID=68524

[The Black Prince]

Hehe..OK let's start from the beginning.

For as far as I know, there has never been found remains of helmets with auroch horns or full eagle wings..
That said the idea that helms with onrnaments dind't exist is not true, The Romans and Greeks were right that f.i. Kelts but also the Sea Peoples had horns and feathers on their helmets. Though horns of bronze, wood or iron, not keratine. And the same for the feathers, rather just feathers than full wings..(full wings do rot of course ;)).

Some helmets might have been pure ceremonial, but the larger parts of helmets found shows battle wear and might well be worn in battle for some protection (it is always better as bare headed) and more important for recognition. People have done much more unlogical things on the battlefield to be recognized, earn status and prestige. Or just fanaticism (f.i. entering the battle naked, painted in blue..:D).

Bronze Age

Although there aren't that much Bronze-Age helmets found in Northern Europe, those that were found had ornaments. And most of the time horns, not like the horns of an auroch but pipes etc..

http://image.forumcommunity.it/3/1/8/6/0/7/0/1256057480.jpg
Two 'ceremonial' helmets from Vikso, the best preserved North-European Bronze Age helmets.

From the Mediterranean ther are also Bronze helmets with horns, however also here never made of real horns but of bronze:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2uj4gvb.jpg
Ligurian 'battle' helmet

Iron Age

From the North/Central-European Iron Age, except for some La Tène helmet found in the Thames already shown on the previous page, not much horned Helmets are found. Ornaments are usually large pikes from the base of the top stretching in height (some more as 0.5m), or ribbons on the side for attaching feathers (again not sure about complete wings):

http://www.vicus.org.uk/images/helmets/lot17.jpg
La Tène helmet, note the knots on the side, sometimes opening are found, which might have had 'organic' material attached (f.i. feathers).

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/miltiade/casque_vautour.gif
La Tène helmet from 300 BC

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/miltiade/casque_celte.jpg
La Tène 'battle' helmet found in Greece 3th century BC

Other ornamented helmets are known from the Mediterranean:

http://www.sheshen-eceni.co.uk/images/ancient%20greek%20sea%20serpent%20war%20helmet1.jp g
Messapian helmet 325 BC.

http://www.sheshen-eceni.co.uk/images/etruscan%20helmet%20bm1.jpg
Etruscan Helmet.

(Germanic and Viking/Anglo-Saxon/Franconian age will follow later..I aint got the time at the moment.)

[The Black Prince]

Before I step to Germanic and Late-Germanic helmets I want to refer to a text of Diodorus who wrote about the Kelts their appearance when campaigning (it must have been an impressing sight):

The Celtea wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even horns, which made them look even taller than they already are...while others cover themselves with breast-armour made out of chains. But most content themselves with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into battle...Weird, discordant horns were sounded, [they shouted in chorus with their] deep and harsh voices, they beat their swords rhythmically against their shields.”
(Written by Diodorus, a Roman historian)



From the North/Central-European Iron Age, except for some La Tène helmet found in the Thames already shown on the previous page, not much horned Helmets are found. Ornaments are usually large pikes from the base of the top stretching in height (some more as 0.5m), or ribbons on the side for attaching feathers (again not sure about complete wings):

http://www.vicus.org.uk/images/helmets/lot17.jpg
La Tène helmet, note the knots on the side, sometimes opening are found, which might have had 'organic' material attached (f.i. feathers).

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/miltiade/casque_vautour.gif
La Tène helmet from 300 BC

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/miltiade/casque_celte.jpg
La Tène 'battle' helmet found in Greece 3th century BC


Concerning the Germanic helmets during the Roman period we know they used simple crossband helmets, and 'modified to their native needs' Roman Helmets the last sometimes with facemasks.

The modified Roman helmets had usually taken off the neckguard and cheekpieces leaving a simple helmet that was according to iconography decorated with feathers and furs:

http://i49.tinypic.com/dc3amu.jpg
Germanic warriors with weird helmets from the Arch of Constantine

The best example is the Krefeld helmet, it is a Weisenau type Roman helmet with taken off the cheekpieces and the neckguard is also removed.
When the helmet was found organic remains of a marten and part of featherquills were stuck on it:

http://i47.tinypic.com/9ir7rt.jpg
The 'Batavian' helmet from Krefeld/Gelduba (69 AD)

http://i45.tinypic.com/smpzpc.jpg
Reconstruction of the Krefeld helmet

Well, it is a Germanic helmet with feathers, but just different than the depictions of artists during the Romantic Age.:D

During the later time of the Roman Empire, helmets got influenced by Iranian types (Romans and Germanic auxilia fought in Persia against them). This gave rise to the so called Spangen helmet. A conical helmet with often noseguards, cheekpieces and a mail neckguard or facial mask of mail.

The first example is a Roman helmet which got deposited at some point, following Old Germanic custom perhaps.

http://www.livius.org/a/1/germania/helmet.jpg
Spangen type helmet from Deurne

It is this type of helmet that was the cradle of the later Frankish/Anglo-Saxon/Viking helmets.

Frankish helmet:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/4505/grgood04.gif

The crested helmets are famous enough (Sutton Hoo, Vendel, Valsgarde, Coppergate, Gjermund), so I don't show them here. It is to be noted however that these are the last (for a while) with ornaments like a boar crest or plumes of horse hair. Yet no horns.:D

The later period (10th-13th century) saw the rise of a more standardized type, often worn throughout Europe. The 'classic' Spangen helmet loses terain agaisnt the helmets made from one piece of metal. Though the helmets keep their conical shape and nose guard. The reason however that it goes in the books as Viking helmet is because in the rest of Europe (with exception of the Slavic lands) people became Christian. And Christians don't get buried with their armament like heathens.

Ornaments like horns come back on stage when the joustes take stage. Ornaments made of flashing metal or painted wood on great helmets show of the wearers identity and status. The most impressive in battle are those worn by the Teutonic knights. Anyway they are known from most 'hollywood alike' videogames --> Personally I strongly doubt that knights when dismounted still wore great helmets, the vision from the narrow visorslits is good enough when mounted, but in a rough melee on foot with enemies in front and coming from behind it seems unpractical to me.

[Óttar]

The Vikings had bullet shaped helmets. There are some carvings of a horned Thor, but the horned or winged Viking myth is a product of romantic paintings.
http://monarchy.nl/viking/viking2.gif
Typical Viking Helmet.

[Laudanum]

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/miltiade/casque_vautour.gif
La Tène helmet from 300 BC


Wow, people must have had a hard time keeping that thing on their heads.:eek:

[Arrow Cross]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Codex_Manesse_Tannhäuser.jpg

[The Black Prince]

Wow, people must have had a hard time keeping that thing on their heads.:eek:

The helmet itself is a quite good fit regarding headshape, when provided with cheekpieces and chinstrap it will hold quite well. However its functionality in a melee battle would be less as with a bare helmet. However prestige/status is worth something. It would be a intimidating sight: a big Gallic chieftan even made taller by wearing such a helmet with large ornaments above it:

http://i48.tinypic.com/2itgfpe.png
Osprey image from: Rome's enemies, Gallic and British Celts

(btw. The later Romans adopted the Keltic Coolus/Montefortino helmet but placed instead of feathers or horn like ornaments a ridge with horsehair upon it).

[Agrippa]

They most likely took an artistic license from the fact the Celts wore horned helmets.

Actually the Celts had no horned helmets neither, at least we found no helmet with any form of practical use, the only horned helmets found were used for rituals it seems, not too many I might add.

There were however people which used horned helmets and they were even Indoeuropeans most likely, namely the Sea People, which depictions can be seen f.e. in the engraved images of Medinet Habu. Images can be seen here:
http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/sea.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples#Hypotheses_about_the_Sea_Peoples