Gladiator helmets preserved by Vesuvius on display

Three gladiator helmets "perfectly preserved" following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago are to go on display in Leeds as part of an international touring exhibition.

Gladiators: Heroes of the Colosseum has been brought to the Royal Armouries in collaboration with the Colosseum in Rome and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

The exhibition also features gladiatorial weaponry and armour from a training camp in Pompeii, effectively frozen in time as a result of the eruption in 79AD.

Royal Armouries director general and master of the armouries Nat Edwards said the collection gave a "real sense of the spectacle of gladiatorial combat".

He said: "Some of the objects in this collection you really can't see anywhere else in the world.

"We have three perfectly preserved gladiators' helmets. They're incredibly rare, they're beautifully decorated, all of the parts still work.

"They've got decorations showing winged Victories and barbarian captives, and they look as good as new. They could have just been taken off yesterday, they're quite amazing."

The exhibition runs from 28 June to 2 November in Leeds, and has already attracted more than one million visitors while on display internationally.

It was officially opened on Wednesday by Jodie Ounsley, also known as Fury from BBC One show Gladiators.

"That was a lovely golden thread that connected the spectacle of Rome, and why people went to watch gladiators then, to our own fascination with competition and larger-than-life heroism," said Mr Edwards.

Mr Edwards said his favourite piece was a gravestone to gladiator Urbicus.

"There's a little object at the end of the exhibition, which is really personal and intimate and it's a gravestone, which was made by the wife of a gladiator.

"His name was Urbicus and she tells his story. He was a kind-hearted gladiator. He spared one of his opponents in the arena who then stabbed him in the back.

"But it's a picture of him with his dog, with his pet, and this is a loving wife who has put a picture of this loved, gentle-hearted soul who found his way into the gladiators arena and his pet dog.

"And there's something, which is so human about that. It's just a little moment of connection with a human being across thousands of years of history and ultimately that's what museums like our own are all about, those human connections," he said.

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