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Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Peter Raftos - 01-24-2009
I'm afraid the dating for the Silver, repousse dish from the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg depicting Achilles and Briseis is about 550. It was found near near Kungur, Perm.
[url:ije9qel8]http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/museums/shm/shm0632.jpg[/url]
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - egfroth - 01-26-2009
Another example of a possible head for a menavlion is a find from the 11th century shipwreck found at Serçe Liman1 (off southern Anatolia) at http://ina.tamu.edu/SL-tools.htm - look particularly at the thrid photo in left-hand column, which has a scale of centimeters for comparison. I reckon that bigger spearhead is about 30cm (12") long. And also look at the "boar-spear" photo third from the top in the left-hand column. Unfortunately, no scale given and no source quoted.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Peter Raftos - 01-26-2009
Egfroth,
Got the dimensions from Dr Beatson who has the TAMU publication.
The dimensions in general are: length of overall head 0.37 (metres); length of blade 0.278; length of socket 0.092.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - egfroth - 01-27-2009
Thanks, mate.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 01-27-2009
Darn, foiled by pesky *facts* again.
Thanks for the details & the pict. As I mentioned before, I was covering my bases and also have a menavlion point ready of the other type suggested by egroft, of the boar-spear type with crossguard.
Tell me, do you think the date is right? the helmets are surely of the earlier type, but how about the harness aka varangian bra? I have been focusing mostly on 9-12 th c. research lately so I don't know, but I thought the fully developed harness of this form was much later than 6th C. .
One thing that's good, if this is what a 6th C. roman kit looked like, the 10-11th C. kit my group is working on will fit plausibally well (with minor tweaks - a new shield here a custom made 6th C. 'christmas tree head' spear there) for a 400-500 year impression. I suppose thats very cost effective, on an dollar-per-century-basis calculation anyway.
-Rick
Quote:I'm afraid the dating for the Silver, repousse dish from the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg depicting Achilles and Briseis is about 550. It was found near near Kungur, Perm.
[url:13rd4ld3]http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/museums/shm/shm0632.jpg[/url]
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 01-27-2009
Following up, all I could find was this on-line.
http://www.s155239215.onlinehome.us/tur ... entsEn.htm
While not specifically mentioning this exact plate, this suggests that the plates were not dug up in controled in-archeological-context digs, but just appeared, plowed up or whatever. Further, it states that most of the local items are 5-7th C. and that the byzantine items are later. So the dating is presumabally by an expert looking at the style or manufacture and also at the style of items depicted. So, experts, do you think the 550 date is right?
Quote:Tell me, do you think the date is right? the helmets are surely of the earlier type, but how about the harness aka varangian bra? I have been focusing mostly on 9-12 th c. research lately so I don't know, but I thought the fully developed harness of this form was much later than 6th C. .
Peter Raftos:3efa5lma Wrote:I'm afraid the dating for the Silver, repousse dish from the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg depicting Achilles and Briseis is about 550. It was found near near Kungur, Perm.
[url:3efa5lma]http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/museums/shm/shm0632.jpg[/url]
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Peter Raftos - 01-29-2009
A quick message. Tim Dawson's ISP has crashed and with it the Levantia site. Tim has put up a Levantia lite site here until things are sorted. It has his new reconstruction of a 10th C Kataphrakt
[url:2oztpub2]http://livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/Levantia_light/[/url]
His Hetaireia Palatiou site is still up here[url:2oztpub2]http://livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/palacecompany/[/url]
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Peter Raftos - 01-29-2009
Rick,
In George Dennis’ translation of "Three Byzantine Military Treatises" a Byzantine equivalent to the Roman subarmalis called the Peristithidion is mentioned as being worn under metallic armour and above the clothes to make it more comfortable for the soldier.
The Varangian Bra goes back to the 5th Century in Sassanid art and appears soon after in Byzantine art. (See Sven's article from the Varangian Voice back in '93
[url:ruh3rjzu]http://www.nvg.org.au/documents/vv/vv_issue_28.pdf[/url])
No real conclusions then. It could be an artistic convention representing a real piece of equipment but it doesn't appear in any of the military manuals. Or does it
My original contention remains that rather than being merely vestigal artistic convention it represents the Peristithidion.
You’ll find the reference in The Anonymous Byzantine Treatise on Strategey Section 16 Armament.
Try the top and bottom paragraphs of page 55 in that edition. The top reference is to a garment (himation) at least a finger thick under armour - a kabadion? The other reference to the padded garment under armour is at the bottom of the page (you'll find the Greek word peristithidia at the top of page 56.
While this document was originally written in the 6th Century and its language may simply reflect an archaic or earlier description of the kabadion, it was also read in the 10th and 11th Centuries.
The archaizing Joshua Scroll has them. Even though it is 10th C the artistic style mimics that of a much earlier date – The figures depicted on the 10th C Joshua Casket ( also with Bras) have similar armor. and the style is similar to that depicted on the Joshua Scroll – a deliberate archaizing confection – a Byzantine anachronism - which is the artistic equivalent of them using good Attic Greek for formal texts but actually speaking Medieval- almost modern Greek.
Horvath discusses the Joshua armour in a different context in his article on the Sutton Hoo armour and arrives at it being copied from 7th C originals.
[url:ruh3rjzu]http://horvathdp.googlepages.com/AFJ2007_Horvath.pdf[/url]
He mentions in passing the helmets of the David plates ( dated to 627-530 AD as most of have imperial control hallmarks) are identical to Joshua and Achilles type. See [url:ruh3rjzu]http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/publications/pdfs/david/DAVID_PLATES_ENTIRE_BOOK.pdf[/url] for pretty pictures.
Not very helpful but it illustrates how some things in Byzantine art must be treated with caution.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - egfroth - 02-03-2009
I've got a slightly better copy of this representation and close inspection shows a (very worn) pattern of rings, suggesting to me that it's a mail shirt.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Theodosius the Great - 02-03-2009
Hi Steven,
Quote:I've got a slightly better copy of this representation and close inspection shows a (very worn) pattern of rings, suggesting to me that it's a mail shirt.Do you think all the armoured figures in the center register wear mail shirts ? Or only Goliath ?
I thought the one on the extreme left might be wearing a scale shirt.
~Theo
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 02-03-2009
The mail look is also suggested by the 'form fitting' quality. Back when I wondered if these were candidate menavlion types I thought that mail was a good sign... since that job description seems to call out for armor, but, armor for an agile fast moving guy; not super heavy infantry armor.
-Rick
Quote:I've got a slightly better copy of this representation and close inspection shows a (very worn) pattern of rings, suggesting to me that it's a mail shirt.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Orlirva - 02-03-2009
Thanks for your thoughts.
I can't remember anyone comparing the 'bra' to clavi (sp?) the two stripes gunning down the tunic front, from left and right collarbone in antique roman times.
Some of these pdfs are new to me and I look forward to reading them.
-Rick
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - egfroth - 02-04-2009
Quote:Hi Steven,
egfroth:34t0kp5r Wrote:I've got a slightly better copy of this representation and close inspection shows a (very worn) pattern of rings, suggesting to me that it's a mail shirt.Do you think all the armoured figures in the center register wear mail shirts ? Or only Goliath ?
I thought the one on the extreme left might be wearing a scale shirt.
~Theo
Do you mean the two armoured figures in http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/mu ... hm0632.jpg ? If so, yes, both have the same pattern of small rings, which I interpret as mail, though I acknowledge they could be meant to represent scale.
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - Theodosius the Great - 02-04-2009
Hi Steven,
Sorry, I thought you were originally refering to the David and Goliath plate here :
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/hb ... 90.396.jpg
The soldier's armour on the extreme left seems to have a different pattern from the others.
His appears to be scale as far as I can tell while the others seem to wear either mail or
plate. Would you concur ?
~Theo
Re: Byzantine Weapons and Warfare - kuura - 02-19-2009
Sorry to slip this in but I came across this helmet and wondered if anyone had seen anything similar before or could correctly date it. Apparently it's Serbian (copy?) C10th but looks earlier?
![[Image: serbia10.jpg]](http://i79.servimg.com/u/f79/12/99/86/60/serbia10.jpg)