Quote:Then let me tell you a story.
Segmented leather armour DID exist in 105 A.D., and is illustrated clearly on Trajan's Column !!! But it was Sarmatian rather than Roman....... still sure that leather segmentata didn't exist ?? The Romans copied many other things Sarmatian !!
Unbelievable. I'm not saying it's impossible, but holy crap balls man...do you just invent stuff in your head? THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR LEATHER SEGMENTATA, AND BASING A COMPLETE ARGUMENT ON ART IS JUST AS REDICULOUS.
Quote:To Magnus: Have you any more factual evidence regarding the performance of leather armour, other than your un-supported opinion so far that "it sucks" ?? Evidence would allow readers to make up their own minds.
I have solid scientific evidence that Greek bronze corselets ( or rather the few surviving fragments ) were around 1mm thick, and that a leather corselet 5mm thick would offer better protection, or a linen one 10 mm thick. The bronze coreslet would weigh around 3.5 kg, the leather or linen one would be around 2kg (c.f the American nylon bullet/shrapnel vest T52 at 3.5 k )
First, the onus is on YOU, not me to provide more than your left field ideas as evidence to support your claims. If you want evidence, go to
www.swordforum.com . I'm not searching through that entire site because this entire discussion is complete garbage. Secondly, what evidence do you have, and vs what type of weapons?
THIRDLY, WHAT ERA WAS THIS LEATHER CORSELET FROM, BECAUSE NONE HAVE BEEN FOUND IN ANTIQUITY FOR THE GREEK PERIOD!!!! So is your "evidence" even relevant? PROBABLY NOT.
Quote:I have solid scientific evidence that Greek bronze corselets ( or rather the few surviving fragments ) were around 1mm thick, and that a leather corselet 5mm thick would offer better protection, or a linen one 10 mm thick. The bronze coreslet would weigh around 3.5 kg, the leather or linen one would be around 2kg (c.f the American nylon bullet/shrapnel vest T52 at 3.5 k )
.
There is no way that 1mm of properly cast and work hardened bronze of an alloy that was actually used in the Iron or Bronze Ages would provide less protection than 5mm of leather - even if it was hardened. There is no published paper on the planet that would meet even the most basic scientific scrutiny that supports this claim. Williams' tests prove that even 1mm of unhardened mild steel offers better protection than 5mm of hardened leather. Williams' book is the most definitive ever published, having taken the best part of 30 years of his life. This discussion is a waste of time until the interested parties have read his work.
As Magnus has pointed out, this is a scholarly / scientific forum. This implies that arguments made here about armour are supposed to be backed up by primary and secondary sources, published archaeological experiments AND material evidence. To transform this thread into something that is also enjoyable to read for future RAT members, I suggest that all further statements made here concerning the quality of muscle cuirasses follow this simple rule. I know that some people have the opinion that RAT is over moderated, but you see this moderating here rather as you would see a discussion leader in a seminar. It seems to be necessary.
My five cents, in a purely "methodological" argueing:
Why go through the lengthy process of tanning leather and confer during this process the characteristica flexibility, watertightness and durability to rawhide, which is ductile and inflexible, to then treat the leather again to confer to it the characteristica it had before it was processed? That only makes sense, if rawhide as a product was not available, e.g. in an area, where a material like leather or hide has to be imported.
Rawhide armour as such apparently existed in Anitquity, e.g. the Ligurians used it, as described by Diodorus Siculus.
Apart from that, I see no reason to produce a leather musculata nowadays anyway. It is impossible to make a reconstruction or reproduction of one, since no original exists. As soon as one comes up in an excavation somewhere this would / will change. So far it is nothing but made up, not backed by evidence, hence as realistic as e.g. Roman or Greek paper, or, say, gunpowder.
Quote:You also took my previous post a little too seriously --- I was simply demonstrating that a leather 'segmentata' type armour did co-exist with Legionary armour.
Hardly. I can make close to a dozen reconstructions that would resemble that carving on Trajan's column and only a couple of them would involve leather. The only evidence we have for segmented leather dates to the Middle Ages in Persia.
Quote:geala:2anamfy2 Wrote:That's a lot of valuable information in this thread. I am reconsidering leather armour after reading it.
This is the kind of reaction I was hoping as a moderator to avoid on RAT. Now, with absolutely jack squat in the way of evidence, we have people doing greek armour a la hollywood style.
Way to go guys promoting something you have no evidence for, just whimsical theories based on speculation.
So much for RAT being a scholarly forum. :evil:
I have to say, your absolute refusal to even discuss the use of leather to make armour in Greco-Roman history is kind of odd. Last time I checked, people in this thread
were discussing primary evidence, even if the debating flowed away from this topic from time to time.
To set the record straight.
I posted staf including art exmples trying to support the theory.
The members pointed out that the evidence I showed were not supporting the case. Fair enough thats why I posted them here : to be accepted or to be dismissed.
So far hide armor is just plausiible not certain.and as I posted before we do not knowi what hide/leather hardening techiques the anscients used .
I saw sole leather that was difficult to penetrate with a shoe makers tools.
If the ancients had that hide/leather it is open to speculation and I certainly dont know if it was possibble to make even a bell type cuirras from it.
Kind regfards
Quote:I have to say, your absolute refusal to even discuss the use of leather to make armour in Greco-Roman history is kind of odd. Last time I checked, people in this thread were discussing primary evidence, even if the debating flowed away from this topic from time to time.
That's because like Paullus you seem to think it's "ok" to base theories on only one type of evidence (ART), as I tried to get through to you in the other thread. This is simply folly.
Evidence types:
1. Archaeological
2. Documentary
3. Artistic
You need a combination of two of the above at the very least to support a theory that has little basis in reality. I have yet to see either in the previous thread, or this one, that don't
rely heavily on biased speculation.
Magnus, do we have two of the three categories if it comes to linen armour? I don't think so. Why then we can exclude leather as a possible material entirely? There are enough arguments (new for me) in this thread and two others to shatter my persuasion that leather was utterly crap.
I stick with linen armour, it was presumably as cheap and offered better protection, but who knows?
Btw, if I read the test made by a ManningImperial guy that it was very easy to slash through a glued linen armour: glue was seemingly introduced in the discussions to explain the behavior of the shoulder flaps of linen armour when loose (standing straight in the air). When I look to my experience with medieval armour, the motto for cloth armour was: the softer the better; so glue was the last thing I would have put on my cloth armour.
Could hardened leather explain the behavior of the shoulder flaps? Or would it stay in the bent form? If so that would be an argument against leather.
Quote:Could hardened leather explain the behavior of the shoulder flaps? Or would it stay in the bent form? If so that would be an argument against leather.
This is probably the best question I have seen regarding this topic for some time. I can't think of a way to make leather behave as the shoulder flaps do in the illustrations. Perhaps others have had more experience.
Quote:Magnus, do we have two of the three categories if it comes to linen armour?
All three. There are several Mycenaean depictions of white tunics with dotted lines of quilting, both vertical and a diagonal grid pattern. Most of us interpret all those thingies on Classical vase paintings as being linen, too, but I certainly understand being ambivalent about them. Next, there are clear descriptions of linen armor both in Homer and in Classical sources. Descriptions, mind you, not just iffy mentions. Finally, there are surviving fragments from Mycenae and Thebes, the latter being a substantial chunk about 15 layers thick with some of the edging intact, so it clearly isn't just a folded piece of cloth. Artistic, literary, and archeological evidence.
As a further comparison, linen armors were far and away the most common defenses in the high middle ages.
Khairete,
Matthew
To Dan ; I should have explained myself better - leather/textile armours are more resistant than metal to some types of weapon ( but less resistant to others ).All three types I mentioned have been shown to adequately resist blows between 30-40 Joules of kinetic energy. Armour resistance is probably better discussed on Giannis new thread. I mean to post some basic information soon - see you there ? It is a pity that the Williams book you refer to isn't readily available, so it would seem we must soldier on without it.
As to the Sarmatian coat on TC, yes, the same problem applies as to all artistic depictions - you can't really tell what it is made of ( but you most certainly couldn't plausibly put forward a dozen reconstructions !)When you take all the factors into account (shape, fastenings, likely materials available etc ) leather is by far the best bet.
Where does the idea that the shoulder pieces on tube-and -yoke corselets is "springy" come from ? They might be, but the depictions of Patroclus on the Sosias painter's cup and the Douris cup of Hoplites dressing ( the latter simplified, and incorrectly dated, on p.39 of Connolly, "Greek Armies" and also "Greece and Rome at war" ) could just as easily be simply 'thrown back' - if they were a 'soft' material and relatively thick they would stand up as shown. What do re-enactors who have made these corselets (using leather, line, or composite)find ?
I suspect that the whole idea of 'glued layers of linen' goes no further than Connolly's hypothesis.
To Magnus ; I couldn't agree more with Christian ! If you are going to put forward a premise, then support it ! I have, listing my sources. You put forward the premise "Leather Sucks!" - well, where's your evidence? eh?there is anecdotal evidence elsewhere on this forum that leather resists cuts/thrusts very well, and that glued linen does not. In any event, the viability of different materials is perhaps best left to Giannis thread already referred to.
To Matthew Amt , greetings and salutations!! Your sites on Roman and Hoplite reconstructions are absolute "goldmines" of information, and models of their kind.
Let us agree that Magnus is correct to say that a "best guess" ( and let's face it, given the paucity of information, that's what we are debating here ) should be based on all the information available, and preferably evidence from more than one discipline. You have put forward a summary of evidence for linen tube-and-yoke corselets (someone has, at last - I was beginning to fear that I would have to), but as Geala/Wolfgang points out this is, if anything, as thin as, or thinner than that for leather .Taking Magnus three disciplines; in archaeology, there is no evidence for either material- no tube-and yoke corselets survive (two tiny fragments of linen that would fit into a matchbox from Mycenean civilisations,that can't be recognised as anything, let alone armour,from around a thousand years before, doesn't count for anything !)Similarly, Homer and his 'linothorax' isn't anywhere near contemporary either - and he was talking about what for him/her/them was "ancient history" anyway. Same for Alcaeus (probably)
Sophocles fragment is classical, but again he is talking about Homeric/heroic times - I notice no-one is arguing that this fragment is evidence for chariot use in classical Athenian warfare. The Art evidence is inconclusive - clearly corselets are often painted, others are white (natural linen isn't) and some are pink/flesh-coloured/buff/brownish ( sorry, Magnus, brown [in a general sense] IS the colour of some armour, at least.)
That brings us back to contemporary literature, from which we learn that 'spolas/spolades' is what Hoplites wear, that it is body armour, and that it is made of leather ( and no similar statements for Hoplites and linen). We also learn that 'thorakes linoi' may be of Egyptian origin, were adopted by Persians, and that although Asiatics are described wearing them, Greeks NEVER are, with the exception of Plutarch's description of Alexander wearing a quilted linen one - and that is a captured Persian one !
No actual contemporary evidence for Greek Hoplites wearing linen armour at all then.
The best evidence for linen is what we might infer - through use of greek mercenaries in Egypt by it's last native rulers, Greeks will have seen/known of Egytian cuirasses. In greek art (but not Persian )we see Persians wearing identical tube-and-yoke corselets, some apparently quilted, to Hoplites -but had the artists seen Persian armour, or were they drawing/painting what they knew, and "quilting" it because they were told that Persian armour was so? We know greek artists got things they were unfamiliar with wrong - see, for example their inaccurate depiction of Scythians.
All in all, the overall evidence, meagre as it is, favours leather as much as linen, and the contemporary literature favours leather.
That is about as much as can be said at this point in time.
P.S. Matthew, what was your source for mycenean linen corselets in paintings ? I have only come across greaves depicted white, nothing in the way of 'thorakes
regards, paul McDonnell-Staff'
Yes, Matthew, we have the three categories for linen (or two at least if we defer the interpretable pictural evidence) but as Paul said in the post before not from the time frame we are interested in.
Linen was a much used material for medieval armour but an ordinance of Louis XI of France in the late 15th c. AD told us that a gambeson should be best made of 25 to 30 layers of linen and a layer of leather. And in the 17th c. AD (a century of very spiky swords) buff leather coats (at least a bit flexible) were a much praised and partly expensive armour although it normally could not deflect powerful sword thrusts with the point. So for me it's not so easy to dismiss leather entirely.
For leather the most important argument in my opinion is the mention that a spolas was made from leather by Pollux in his Onomastikon. But it seems that the original text in Greek was not achievable and has to be prooved yet? Did anybody found it? Or did I miss something in the meantime?
All the pictures of Greek armours supposed to be of linen with open shoulder flaps show it straight in the air. I find it hard to interprete as just thrown back. Some springiness comes to mind immediately. But that is a dilemma for linen (I doubt that the linen was glued and not glued there is no springiness in linen armour, or? I don't have one myself, so ...) and maybe leather too (if hardened leather has no springiness either. Or has it?). Something to be prooved in tests.
My ultimate solution: armour was made of layered linen around the breast with hardened leather shoulder flaps... :roll:
Fortunately I can go without armour quite easily as I only reenact a simple peltast.
