Painted legionary helmets? - Printable Version

Painted legionary helmets? - Printable Version

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Re: Painted legionary helmets? - FAVENTIANVS - 09-07-2006

http://people.freenet.de/u-bahr/lombardisch.jpg
What's the blue patina? Paint? Apart from the green copper oxide of course...

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Magnus - 09-08-2006

I used PhD as an example Caius, as opposed to anyone who's an armchair historian throwing their two wooden nickels out into the mix for the sake of doing so (like I often do Big Grin

). In theory the PhD would of course have relevance to what is being discussed. I wouldn't go so far as to start naming off fields of study that has little to do with the topic at hand. But thanks for pointing out the "what if's" and "sometimes"...I don't know what I'd do with out you.

What I'm getting at is that to make such a statement without having some kind of extensive backround in that particular area of Roman history, doesn't have as much credibility. Not dinging Tarbi personally, but it makes a difference if one has the credentials. And using one helmet's jewels where the eyes haven't been definatively classified as "eyes" or just jems is a bit speculative, even if it's a fun theory.

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Praefectusclassis - 09-08-2006

Quote:I used PhD as an example Caius, as opposed to anyone who's an armchair historian throwing their two wooden nickels out into the mix for the sake of doing so

Not wanting to be as extreme as Caius, but as a PhD hopeful, I would admit that PhD's are just as capable of being armchair historians in many of the senses of the word. It's just that they're trained to use all available sourcematerial in a certain way.

To solve this problem, I suggest that all members involved in this thread start helping out getting both photos & references for ALL roman helmets (both BC & AD), so that we can stick them in the database. We can then check - even through something as simple as a poll - how many people see / interpret eyes/eyebrows etc on them. Trouble is of course that we do not have the exact same mindset as ancient romans and that human beings are genetically predisposed to see faces in everything.

Then we'll look up all those references, read them and see how many have been tested for paint traces and how many excavation/restoration reports come up with this idea. We'd also have to read up on the use of eyes as evil-eye averter in the ancient world, like on ships.

Finally we'll have to do at least a thorough secondary literature study on the use of eyes & paint on Greek and Hellenistic helmets, to get a feel for cross-cultural influences.

Collect all the data together and write a nice shiny paper or even a book and publish it to give the definitive answer on that problem at this point in time. How's that?

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Tarbicus - 09-08-2006

Quote:What I'm getting at is that to make such a statement without having some kind of extensive backround in that particular area of Roman history, doesn't have as much credibility. Not dinging Tarbi personally, but it makes a difference if one has the credentials. And using one helmet's jewels where the eyes haven't been definatively classified as "eyes" or just jems is a bit speculative, even if it's a fun theory.

Matt, I do see your point. But who classifies anything anyway? Do you think if one leading authority said it is so then some other wouldn't try to say it isn't so?

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Conal - 09-08-2006

The reason we are all posting here is that this place is full of leading aiuthorities of Roman stuff :roll: and we have different oppinions ... what cannot be said is that one oppinion is invalid because someone with a few letters after his/her name has or hasn't confirmed said oppinion.

I remember a time when it was thought, by experts, that the Gladius Hispaniensis was something other than it turned out to be.

I therefore declare myself an expert and hereby declare them eyes and eyebrows. To me it is the unique nature of the positioning of the jewels which give rise to them representing eyes. I do not need more than one example to deduce that and what others have done with their jewels indicates they may not have been bothered with eyes.

Magnus

Great theory that eyebrows may have been representative of furrowed brows ... :twisted:

Conal

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Peroni - 09-08-2006

Magnus wrote..

Quote:Maybe they're supposed to be representative of the lines in a scowling person's forehead, or a brow knotted in anger.

This theory can be seen on these helmets where both eyes and eyebrows are present... (or are they ? :wink: )

Kessel/Lith..

[Image: kessellisthhelmet.jpg]

Mainz..

Axel Guttmann collection..

[Image: imperialgallichelmet-1.jpg]

Caius Fabius wrote..

Quote:No offense, but what is a PhD except proof that you actually wrote a dissertation that your advisers approved and then defended your thesis? It does not suddenly make a person smarter!

Here! here!

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Dan Diffendale - 09-08-2006

Quote:Trouble is of course that we do not have the exact same mindset as ancient romans and human beings are genetically predisposed to see faces in everything.

I'd say a genetic predisposition makes it perhaps less important that we don't have the exact ancient mindset...

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Tarbicus - 09-08-2006

We may even be less pre-disposed today when it comes to seeing faces in everything, given our lesser inclinations towards superstitious interpretation of what we see.

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Praefectusclassis - 09-08-2006

I've heard/read that it's programmed in our subconscious somewhere. Nothing to do with superstition. Not my thing though. It was just a proposal - fun in itself - but to be useful, needs part 2 & 3.

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Tarbicus - 09-08-2006

It's absolutely true. In visual effects one of the most difficult things to do is a convincing face replacement (substituting a stuntman's face for an actor's). The slightest iddy-bit thing wrong and the entire effect flops. Try the mask optical illusion: Get a face mask, turn it back to front, and it still seems to project outwards towards you. The brain is hardwired for facial recognition. Do the same trick with anything else and the effect doesn't work.

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Magnus - 09-08-2006

Tarbi:

"Matt, I do see your point. But who classifies anything anyway? Do you think if one leading authority said it is so then some other wouldn't try to say it isn't so?"

Yeah, but I'll leave that to the experts. Smile

Getting back to my theory, if no-one classified the eyebrows as eyebrows, or made an extensive study, can we include that in our research for the painted eye theory?

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Magnus - 09-08-2006

"I would admit that PhD's are just as capable of being armchair historians in many of the senses of the word. It's just that they're trained to use all available sourcematerial in a certain way."

Jasper, but doesn't that give our people with formal training in a field a definable edge over someone without, which was kind of my point?

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Primvs Pavlvs - 09-08-2006

I believe I see a Coolus C here [Image: actual%20virgin%20mary%20grilled%20chees...ndwich.gif]

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Praefectusclassis - 09-08-2006

What I was really try to do is to boost the helmet database project. Seriously, I do believe that we can use these projects on Romanarmy.com to actually get academic discussion further.

Re: Painted legionary helmets? - Tarbicus - 09-08-2006

Quote:"I would admit that PhD's are just as capable of being armchair historians in many of the senses of the word. It's just that they're trained to use all available sourcematerial in a certain way."

Jasper, but doesn't that give our people with formal training in a field a definable edge over someone without, which was kind of my point?

For crying out loud, of course it would. An authority has said "They are eyebrows." :wink: Counter arguments please ladies and gents.

Quote:The reason we are all posting here is that this place is full of leading aiuthorities of Roman stuff Rolling Eyes and we have different oppinions ... what cannot be said is that one oppinion is invalid because someone with a few letters after his/her name has or hasn't confirmed said oppinion.

I remember a time when it was thought, by experts, that the Gladius Hispaniensis was something other than it turned out to be.

I therefore declare myself an expert and hereby declare them eyes and eyebrows. To me it is the unique nature of the positioning of the jewels which give rise to them representing eyes. I do not need more than one example to deduce that and what others have done with their jewels indicates they may not have been bothered with eyes.

Magnus

Great theory that eyebrows may have been representative of furrowed brows ... Twisted Evil