Great helmet
This great helmet was discovered in the moat destruction of the Dalečín castle with the help of metal detector in summer 2008. Due to relatively late sources bearing witness to the existence of the castle and dating back to the mid-14th century, the helmet was supposed to date back to the late 14th century, or to the 1340s. However, the great helmet riveted from five parts comes probably from the period around 1300 or from the first decades of the 14th century; in the second half of the 14th century it was used as a target for training crossbow shooting according to preserved bullet holes. It is an extraordinary find complementing some 18 known items of this type preserved or found in western and northern Europe (it is comparable to similarly dated helmets from Madeln and Bolzano, but it resembles the most with its construction and general appearance to the damaged great helmet from the upper castle in the Bavarian Treuchtlingen found in 1983 that dates back to the first quarter of the 14th century). The helmet represents accurately the essential part of the protecting armour used by knights bound for Lithuania and that of the members of the Teutonic Order. Museum in Bystřice nad Pernštejnem.