#kipchak

Cumania

Just a good snapshot on what Turkic people are, and why I keep saying Turkic does not equal Turkish.

Also, if you want to get into the whole "Mamluk Kipchaks who ended up ruling over countries where they were sold as slaves", just Google "Sultan Beibarys".

Spoiler: a Kipchak boy sold as a slave in Egypt, ends up ruling it.

In popular perception it is very common to associate masked helmets such as the ones found in Kovali (picture above) or Lipovets with the Cumans. This has been portrayed in media as well, for example in Age of Empires II and later on very notably in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. However this attribution is in reality mostly without basis, but to understand why we first have to look at its origins, and to do that we first need to talk about who the Cuman-Kipchak are and how they relate to the Tatars.

The Cuman-Kipchak are known for having a significantly powerful confederation in Eurasia which was at its height at the start of the 13th century. While sometimes claimed that the Cumans and Kipchaks were two different peoples, it is more likely that the two names are simply synonyms for the same conglomeration of people, whom would have been made up of a lot of various turkic groups living under the confederacy whose land was often called Cumania by christian sources and Desht-i Qipchaq by Islamic ones. Hence from this point on I will refer to them simply as Cumans.

The Cuman confederation was famously broken up due to the Mongol expansions, which caused groups of Cumans to flee westward. Some ended up settling in Hungary, while others ended up in Rus lands and yet others were conquered and assimilated by the Mongols. What is important to note here is that the Cumans cannot be thought of as one unified group of people all with the same customs, because they were not. This is even more emphasised post-Mongol conquest as the Cumans who settled in various different lands would have gradually adopted to the customs and culture of the lands whom they settled, and this will be important to determine where the famous masked helmets fit into all of this. But before that, let's briefly talk about the Tatars. Tatar was simply a catchall term for the Mongols, and is thought to originate from Persian though to my knowledge it is a term mainly used by European sources. As the Mongols continued to conquer people and incorporate them into their empire, the definition of Tatar would also encompass any and all groups which had become part of the Mongols and were serving in their armies. After the breaking up of the empire into the four Khanates, the term Tatar came to mostly be used to refer to the Golden Horde, which at this point incorporated lots of Turkic people into it including Cumans. Hence the term Tatar does include Cumans in it, but it is not a synonym as it would not include Cumans who were not part of the Golden Horde as it's explicitly related to the mongols. The Cumans who were part of the Tatar Horde are at this point already becoming pretty distinct from the Cumans who are not, and as time went on these differences started to grow even more. The Cumans in Hungary for example are noted to gradually adopt to Hungarian customs, and by the 15th century they cease to keep their signature hairstyles and clothes, and grave finds of Cumans from that time period include a lot of materially hungarian items.

So then, masked helmets. The two famous examples mentioned above (Kovali and Lipovets) are both from Golden Horde territories. Some older russian research tends to for some inexplicable reason associate them with Cumans whom they call Polovtsy, sometimes claiming that they potentially predate the Golden Horde. However there is not really any evidence pointing to this and the masks found bear a lot of resemblance to later 15th and 16th century Persian ones, indicating that they date to the days of the Golden Horde (the shape of the skulls are also most akin to post-mongol examples). What is even more important is that masked helmets of this type have not been found in gravesites associated with Cumans or other turkic peoples outside of the Golden Horde which would indicate that these helmets are in fact something that relate to the Mongols rather than the Cumans.

Now obviously as mentioned earlier the Golden Horde did contain Cumans in it, and so a Cuman serving as a cavalryman in a Tatar army could very well have used a helmet like this. However there is nothing pointing towards the claim that the Cumans themselves were who brought these helmets to the Horde, as no archeological finds support this argument. Rather it's that these are armours which would've been used by anyone part of the Horde, including Cumans, however would also not be found outside of direct Mongol influence. For example, a Cuman settled in Hungary would not have used a helmet like this since he wouldn't be living in a culture to adopt it from.

Which reaches the conclusion that these are Tatar helmets and should not be thought of as Cuman helmets.

The eternal nomadic warrior....

Tradtional art