Found out most of those Viking helmets with horns are a total myth

I was watching some history doc last night while eating dinner. Turns out that iconic horned helmet look? Made up by some costume designer for a 19th century opera production. Actual Viking helmets found in digs have zero horns on them. Just smooth metal domes with a nose guard basically. Now I'm wondering what else we got totally wrong about the past. Anyone else stumble on a fact that made you question everything you learned in school?

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_white3925d ago

That thing about the horned helmets really threw me for a loop too when I first heard it. But you know what else is a huge myth? That people in the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat. That was a story made up later by some writers in the 1800s to make people back then look dumb. Actually, pretty much everyone educated knew the earth was round since the ancient Greeks figured it out with math and shadows. And then there's the whole thing about Columbus being the first to discover America, when there were Vikings living there for a bit, and obviously people had been there for thousands of years already. It's like half of what we think we know about history is just a story someone told and we all just went along with it.

morgan.mary25d ago

Wait, the flat earth thing wasn't true? I always thought that was real history.