Ars Dimicandi about european Reenactment in german news

[Tib. Gabinius]

Tobias and Susanna

What was your opinion of the Roman leather armour shown in Roman Military Clothing 3? It was found at Ballana, Nubia originting from Roman Egypt. It is dated between the 4-6th centuries.

Right now all my books are ready to be moved to my new home, so i m aint able to watch for what you mean exactly, but i never denied organic armors, like you can read in the postings before. I know the Garara examples really good, and i know they are made of corocdile and turtelhide, and they ARENt looking like segmentatae.

Organic materials may well be rare in western Europe but you are forgetting that in places like Egypt there are masses of material dating from early excavations much of which has been scattered in hundreds of collections world wide and is not conveniently la belled as Roman for modern Roman military scholars like ourselves to easily track down.

So you speculate that a collector took parts of a segmentata? Or do you mean he took something whole? The best textile conservation is caused by the clima of northern africa, and if i take a look at the problems egypt made the english fearing something there will be stolen, and the prestige those get, who published about things like Fayum, i can believe, but only hard believe theres a little chance that something like this happend. So its not like Lotto anymore, its more like 6 of 7

Exactly the point of my first comment. That was when the idea of leather armour was not so preposterous because the military as well as ordinary civilians were still using it.

Still today some jobs use leather protection, but the army, who used real armour already used metal, its not to compare.
I remember that the cuirasses of cavallery in napoleonic time was made of metal, as like their helmets. The light cav. didnt used any armour.
What proofes that? That proofes something about modern armies, not about ancient time.

Why did the early reconstruction of a Roman soldier in Mainz have armour entirely in leather? Even the (strange to us) leather leggings that figure wears are repeated in a medieval sculpture on display in Turin Museum and on another thread (help me out here Jim!) Dan Howard talked about leather segmented armour that also existed in the medieval period.

Why have the not really old reconstruction of a caesarian time soldier in the Rheinsiche Landesmuseum Bonn a small round shield? Dos this allow to make the convers result: the scuta of Caesar were small, convex and round?

I remember showing a picture of a Roman stone thrower to a number of academics years ago, most of whom thought the suggestion daft even though the picture was based on a character from Trajan's Column. Their line (...)
Well thanks to the guys at Quinta re-enactment group who also looked at the same evidence and saw other scenes such as those on Constantine's arch and carried out controlled experiments that opinion has now changed.

I cant follow you and the connection to right now.
If you mean there were doubt about using the slings, so i can name you german articles from 1899 till today where its clear said, that there were never doubts about that... So it was perhaps a discussion under scientist, but nothing like the situation about leather seg. today.

Most academic objections to leather armour appear to me to be based on the suggestion that leather armour, not just leather lorica segmentata, did not exist because it would not be practical rather than because none has ever been found.

It also look absolutly unlogical to me to use a leather seg. But for the science its just a question of sources, and there arent sources for leather seg. anyway.

I think even modern experiments like those carried out by Ars Dimicandi and others have at least proved that it is possible and practical so we should keep an open mind on this leather armour debate which we will not resolve by simply rejecting it.

What Ars Dimicandi proofed was the practically side of them, and no one ever had doubt about that they were light and flexible. They didnt proofed that they were used nor the armour-effect nor that its impossible to do same work in metal seg.

Lets do it same way like the pros of leather seg.
Take a look at the crupelarius puppet, read about him in the Tacitus passage and than say me, if he had metal or leather

P.S Tobias, when you see my new book you might indeed think you have won the lotto! :wink:

I'm looking forward to that. When will it appear?