Hi guys,
two years ago, I put together a call for suggestions of finds of scale and lamellar armour with their soft parts intact. Anywhere west of India and up to late antiquity is of interest, I define my terms in the announcement.
https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com...ur_1_1.pdf
Please share this to your communities! I am not smart about FB groups, subreddits, twitter hashtags, and what not ... no time! Unfortunately, the newsletter of the Association for Roman Military Equipment Studies has dried up, and I don't know where classical archaeologists hang out online.
You need to talk to Nadeem Ahmad.
Contact our colleague from Čačak Museum about Jelica find (VI century). It is on conservation now as far as I know.
vujadinovicvujadinatgmaildotcom
Mentioned remains of hide in Jelica catalogue on page 200, cat. nr. 403.
https://www.academia.edu/attachments/535...&s=profile
(03-02-2019, 04:36 PM)Arahne Wrote: [ -> ]Contact our colleague from Čačak Museum about Jelica find (VI century). It is on conservation now as far as I know.
vujadinovicvujadinatgmaildotcom
Mentioned remains of hide in Jelica catalogue on page 200, cat. nr. 403.
https://www.academia.edu/attachments/535...&s=profile
Thanks Stefan, I have sent emails to the museum and to Nadeem Ahmad.
Its on the list between Gordion, Turkey and Vize/Bizye, Turkey.
Different kinds of hide product have very different survival rates, and hide scales are often rawhide whose survival rate is pretty near zero. So we have heavy, tanned leather calligae but not the ?tawed? leather straps which articulated iron manicae and lorica segmentata. Therefore I would not read the absence of evidence as evidence of absence, especially because Roman Army Studies scholars and reenactors often do the reverse and assume that all ancient armour looked like the iron, bronze, and brass kinds which they see in reports (my favourite example: the
big brass needles in pewter or brass cases which medieval reenactors love, but also survive in the ground better than other solutions and are easy to spot in digs ... brass cases are the vast majority of the finds, but I doubt that they were in the vast majority of sewing baskets).
Since I wrote the call for sources in 2017, I have gained access to James' Dura book, and the published version will talk about it in more detail. I don't remember whether the rawhide-and-stick shields were from the collapsed tower like the horse trappers and the cuisses.
Also, the scales and lamellar from Dura are a lot of catalogue entries, but I seem to recall that James thought most of them came from a very small number of armours which were in a fragile condition when found and were not well conserved (they are still decaying, I would like to see them as soon as possible but that costs money and CO2). So the long list of catalogue entries might just tell us about 2 or 3 armours.
Thanks Crispianus. I am fully booked right now, but roughly, I think I already have the fragments of scale armour in Oxford or Cambridge, I don't have the gorget from Dervini or the lamellar from Karanis.
What name or handle should I use when I acknowledge you in the footnotes? Feel free to PM me or write to the email address on the "about" page of my blog.
I was not able to contact the Jellica museum or Nadeem Ahmad of Eran ud Turan.
Here is Petros Themelis' catalogue entry for the gorget, with a mix of Google translate and my own translation. Could anyone who speaks Modern Greek help?
Β46. Μηνοειδές περιτραχήλιον (Πίν. 19, 95)
=========================================
Ελλιπές κατά τον πυρήνα και την κατακόρυφη ταινία προστασίας του λαιμού (κολλάρου). Αποκατάθηκε και συμπληρώηκε με δέρμα. Λιακοσμημένο μεχάλκινεσ πεταλόσχημες φολίδες, σιην ευθύγραμμη χορδή των οποίων από τρεισ οπές πρόσδεσής. Μέγ. άνοιγμα 0,225 μ.
Β. 46 Crescent-shaped gorget (pictures 19, 95)
Incomplete in the core and the upright standing band around the throat (collar). Restored and supplemented with leather. Decorated with πεταλόοχημες bronze scales in a straight line, with three anchor holes. Max. opening 0.225 m.
Since people are downloading this, I have uploaded
version 1.3 which includes Derveni and Keranis and adds more information about some of the finds I had already found.
I have not yet worked in all the material from Černenko's PBF volume, if I were generous about what to include that could easily double the length of the list.