| Sumario: | The Yarm helmet was unearthed in the 1950s in Chapel Yard, Yarm, North Yorkshire (NGR NZ419 129), by men digging a trench for new sewer pipes.[1][2] There is no record of any archaeological work done at the time to further investigate the site. The only examples from Britain of helmets at the time of its discovery were from Sutton Hoo and Benty Grange (Monyash, Derbyshire).[13] Both of these helmets were almost completely mineralised and in pieces, and thus visually very different to the Yarm helmet, which was composed of corroded but still intact thin iron sheet. That metal is far more homogenous than the iron of the early medieval period,[53] and often contains elements such as phosphorus and manganese in the iron, as well as minerals associated with the higher temperature smelting and melting processes prevalent in later indirect production methods, none of which were seen in the metallographic sections from the Yarm helmet. Consequently, just a handful of helmets belonging to the later group have been preserved by accidental means: the Wenceslas helmet (preserved as a personal relic), Olomouc helmet (survival mechanism unknown), the Gjermundbu helmet (from a late pagan Viking grave),[78] and now the Yarm helmet (hidden or discarded in a pit). Although the Yarm helmet retains the nasal feature common on earlier crested helmets, cheek pieces are not present on either the Yarm helmet, the helmets depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, or the few examples we have of later conical nasal helmets.
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