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+--- Thread: Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor (/showthread.php?tid=22409)
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Jori - 04-05-2013
Hello,
I'm absolutely fascinated by this ancient sculpture, dating from I century AD.
![[Image: dieux-palmyre.jpg]](http://static-media.com/rome/lamellaire/dieux-palmyre.jpg)
I want to recreate this armor. I read everything in RAT about lamellar.
Almost no good sources to do it.
I'm curious about the cingulum : they don't have one.
I'm curious about the gladius : they wear it at officer's side. Would a regular soldier use such armor?
I'm curious about the feminalia and sleeves. For protection against the heavy sun at Palmyre?
I'm curious about the pteryges! Oblique ends.
It's parthian origin, mixed with roman elements. Maybe Palmyre artist tried to put in his gods the best of the two empires? Aniway, lamellar could be used by legionaries from that part of the Roman Empire. Or at least, locked scales armour.
Would it be linen, or leather, those curious waves juste at the bottom of the armour?
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Flavivs Aetivs - 04-05-2013
They used Lamellar in the Dominate and especially in Late Antiquity, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was around in the Principate. Gotta have a prototype at some point I guess.
Either way, I think the pteurges are bawss.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Vindex - 04-05-2013
Fascinating depiction!
Is it really First Century? Do the sword pommels at least not suggest later?
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - john m roberts - 04-05-2013
Quote:Fascinating depiction!
Is it really First Century? Do the sword pommels at least not suggest later?
There were trilobate pommels back in the Republic.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Theodosius the Great - 04-05-2013
Here is the official webpage for the Divine Triad:
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/divine-triad
Lamellar armor may have been around since Assyrian times.
If so, it was already ancient by the 1st century.
~Theo
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - koechlyruestow - 04-05-2013
Helo Jori,
They do not have a cingulum because they are not Romans and do not wear Roman or even Roman-influenced armour.
For the ancient type of lamellar shown on this picture and the way it was laced, see Bengt Thordemann The Armour of the Battle of Wisby page 273-5.
They do not wear their gladii at the officer 's side. They are gods, Aglibol, Baalshamin and Malakbei, so they are represented as the military at the top of the social ladder: cavalrymen, so
they are wearing their spathae in a variation of the Iranian style. Without a scabbard slide, however scabbard slides have been found in Roman Syria.
They are not wearing feminalia but hip-lenght Assyrian type stockings, with or without a covering of Parthian style chap-like overalls attached to the hip. They would als have worn Assyrian style high boots (see M.A.R. Colledge Parthian Art, pl 33 from Dura Europos).
They have long sleeves because they are wearing the local tunics, not the Roman tunica.
They have those peculiar endings at the pteruges because it is a long, tailored, almost knee-lenght armour, tapering towards the hips and then flaring out, so the pteruges were hanging at an angle.
It is not Roman with Parthian elements, it is SYRIAN, Asssyrian and Iranian elements in a hellenistic style. You see, the Levant was not Gaul, it was an area with an urban civilisation much older than that of the Romans, so they were perfectly capable of developing their own type of armour. The Romans initially only stationed three legions in the east and left the protections of the long borders almost entirely to their local vassals. For a contemporary helmet, see H.Russel Robinson The Armour of Imperial Rome plate 349-351, one of the oldest (and in my view the origin) of the masked helmets.
I agree with you about it being very likely that the Roman legionaries stationed in Dura Europos also adopted the local lamellar armour.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Dan Howard - 04-05-2013
Quote:Here is the official webpage for the Divine Triad:The Assyrians used scale armour, not lamellar. The earliest lamellar I've been able to find from anywhere is in China during the Warring States period. There were twelve suits of lacquered leather lamellar found in a tomb at Suixan, Hubei, just north of ancient Chu. See Armour in China before the Tang, by Albert E. Dien. JEAA, 2, 3-4, (Leiden: Brill, 2000). pp.23-59
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/divine-triad
Lamellar armor may have been around since Assyrian times.
If so, it was already ancient by the 1st century.
The Divine Triad armour looks very similar to the Mars of Todi armour which is most likely a scale construction. The scales are laced into horizontal rows on thin strips of leather and then the rows are attached to a backing of cloth, leather, or felt.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - koechlyruestow - 04-05-2013
Dan, I am shocked and disappointed. Scale armour my foot!
I think you will find B. Thordeman's book very revealing. I cannot at the moment remember publications about more recent finds in Assyria itself, but rest assured that the peculiar lamellar found on Crete has also been found in Niniveh and other Assyrian sites.
It is this type of armour that the Phoenicians not only introduced on Crete, but also among the Etruscans (Mars of Todi).
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Dan Howard - 04-05-2013
Scale is defined as small overlapping plates attached to a backing.
Lamellar is defined as small overlapping plates laced together in a manner that has no need of a backing.
Using the above definitions the earliest instance of lamellar is during the Warring States period in China.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - koechlyruestow - 04-05-2013
Just get yourself a copy of Thordeman, and than we continue this, beause you are terribly wrong. In the meantime, I will look up publications on the excavations at Niniveh.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Dan Howard - 04-05-2013
I have an original copy and a modern reprint of Thordeman's book but I fail to see how it is relevant. Everyone else can read it here. Keep in mind that it was published in 1939.
http://michael-engel.io.ua/album329328_0
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Dan Howard - 04-05-2013
This is the relevant passage from Layard's excavation report of Nineveh:
The Arabs employed in removing the rubbish from the chamber with the kneeling winged figures, discovered a quantity of iron, in which I soon recognized the scales of the armour represented on the sculptures. These scales were from two to three inches in length, rounded at one end, and square at the other, with a raised or embossed line in the centre, and had probably been fastened to a vest of linen or felt.*
This armour is scale, not lamellar. If the construction was lamellar, the plates would not need to have been attached to "a vest of linen or felt". FWIW Layard called it "mail", not scale or lamellar. Writers in that period referred to ALL metal armour as "mail".
* Austen Henry Layard, A Popular Account of Discoveries at Nineveh, (New York: J. C. Derby, 1854). 221
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - koechlyruestow - 04-05-2013
Thanks Dan for showing me this site. Look at page 273-5, I think you will find it very interesting. This same type of "scales" were found by Layard and others during their excavations. Layard assumes they were scales attached to a supporting cloth or leather backing, but such a backing was (naturally) not there to be found. But it had never been there, the scales were laced to each other.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - Dan Howard - 04-05-2013
The plates are a similar shape but the lacing holes are arranged differently. None of the extant scales dating to this time period can be assembled without attaching them to some sort of backing. The plates found at Wisby can be laced together into a lamellar assembly. The plates found at Nineveh and other sites during that time (and the earlier Bronze Age) can't.
Armor of the Divine Triad : lamellar armor - koechlyruestow - 04-05-2013
None, are you very sure?
Dan, you very succinctly assumed a similar construction on the Mars of Todi. I think you will not find it a daring assumption to see a similarity with the armours shown on Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs from the 7th century BCE. And you will probably agree we have found very little trace of the Roman period military machine in the Levant as far as armour and weaponry is concerned (of any period for that matter).
As I said, I wil try to find more recent finds of lamellae from Niniveh, but I am somewhat amazed this is a closed book to you.