[3] Apart from the neck guard the basic form is shared by the contemporaneous Pioneer Helmet, a sparsely decorated fighting piece,[4][5] and consists of four parts: an iron skull cap with brass edging and decorations, two iron cheek guards with brass edging, and camail protecting the neck.

[14] A plain binding extends around the front of the helmet, connecting the two cheek guard hinges and covering the edges of the nasal and eye-hole cutouts; a short strip on either side fills the space between the hinge and the end of the eyebrow; behind the hinge on either side, another short piece extends to the end of the cheek guard; and across the back of the helmet, connecting the ends of the cheek guard, runs a mail suspension strip.

[18] These strips are each affixed with two brass rivets and are primarily decorative, for they match the height of the two types of edge binding on the back of the helmet.

[32] At approximately 2:40 pm an excavator, using a flat scraper bucket to remove the natural clay a few centimetres at a time, struck an object.

[32] His fingers wiped away the dust and exposed the golden band at the top of the helmet, after which he alerted the archaeologists on site.

[34] Their investigation showed a wood-lined pit, approximately 1.4m long on each side, and 20 cm (7.9 in) deep; nineteenth-century construction of a factory had removed the upper portion, and had come within a few centimetres of the helmet.

[3] The helmet itself had to be removed quickly, both to prevent corrosion caused by its first exposure to air in more than 1,000 years and for reasons of security, and by 8:30 it had been placed atop crumpled paper in a plastic bowl and packed away to spend the night in the "strong room" of the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research at the University of York.

The shock of the excavator's strike probably also accounts for a missing portion along the rear sinister brow band, which may have corroded before disintegrating with the impact.

[42] At the same time, the random assortment of items also found in the pit does not suggest that the helmet was deposited as a type of offering.

[43] The volatile state of York during the eighth and ninth centuries would have given the helmet's owner ample opportunity to consider hiding it in a well.

[44] Nor had the preceding century of Northumbrian rule been peaceful; between 758 and 867, every King of Northumbria whose fate is known was either murdered, killed in battle or forced out.

[48][46] The scans revealed the presence of the camail and the sinister cheek guard within the cap of the helmet, otherwise filled with clay.

[46][49] No significant organic materials were found—it had been hoped that an interior leather cap, worn as additional padding, might be present—allowing the helmet to be protected against corrosion more easily, by sealing it in a new Perspex box desiccated with sachets of silica gel.

This was done manually, using brushes and a scalpel, with an eye towards preserving the corrosion which itself retained the original surface texture of the helmet.

[51] Micro-abrasive blasting was used on some areas such as the sinister cheek guard, after its broken fragments were adhered together, as the corrosion was too heavy and the surfaces too fragile to press against with the scalpel.

[53] The mail, extremely well preserved despite being a cemented block when removed from the cap of the helmet, was freed by using a scalpel and mounted needle to chip away the corrosion.

[55] The museum's task was largely to undo the damage caused by the excavator by reshaping deformed pieces, reattaching loose fragments, and filling in missing areas.

[56] The nose-to-nape band was first reshaped with the use of a jig fastened to the helmet with three clamps, the middle of which was tightened to bend the metal into place.

[59] The crushed and broken lateral inscription band, meanwhile, was annealed with a natural gas Bunsen burner before being reshaped with wood and Perspex levers.

[59] The two surviving strips edging the inscription band were manually reshaped, while the missing pieces, which may have been catapulted across the construction site by the excavator,[60] were recreated with brass.

[59] At some point in the process a slight dent in the front portion of the nose-to-nape inscription band was also reshaped, despite the belief that it represented contemporary use of the helmet, not post-deposition damage.

[59] This paste was spread atop the gauze, creating a smooth surface that was then coloured with natural powder pigments and shellac dissolved in industrial methylated spirits to match the original tone of the helmet.

[59] Finally, the helmet was cleaned with 15% formic acid, washed with distilled water, dried in hot air, and coated with Renaissance Wax.

[55] The helmet forms part of the permanent collection of the Yorkshire Museum and has been included in many public exhibitions since its discovery.