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Known specimens of lorica plumata - martijn.wijnhoven - 07-11-2007
Hi to all,
Currently I am trying to obtain as much information as possible on the lorica plumata (meaning the hybrid form of lorica where mail and scale are mixed, not the lorica squamata with a medial ridge that is sometimes called the same).
Up to present I could trace 5 specimens:
1) Augsburg, Germany (described by Robinson)
2) Ouddorp, Netherlands (described by Robinson; by Stuart; and by Sim)
3) Newstead, UK (described by Curle; by Robinson; and by Erik Schmidt)
4) Usk, Wales (described by Price; and by Manning)
5) A piece of unknown origin (described on this forum)
- Are there any other lorica plumata remains that anyone is aware of?
- Where are they located?
- Is there any relevant literature besides that already mentioned below?
- Are there any (digital) photos besides those posted on this forum or in the list below?
Any help or information will be welcome.
With kind regards,
Martijn
Bibliographic references up till yet:
Curle, J.A.
1911 Roman Frontier Post and its People: The Fort of Newstead in the Parish of Montrose. J. Maclehose & Sons, Glasgow.
Manning, W.H., Price, J., and Webster, J
1995 Roman Small Finds: Report on the Excavations at Usk 1965-1976. Vol. VII, University of Wales Press.
Price, P.
1983 An interesting Find of Lorica Plumata from the Roman Fortress at Usk. In: Roman Military Equipment: Proceedings of a Seminar held in the Department of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, 21th of March 1983. M.C. Bishop (editor), pp.12-13.
Robinson, H. Russell
1975 The Armour of Imperial Rome. Lionel Leventhal Limited, London.
Sim, David
1997 Roman Chain-Mail: Experiments to Reproduce the Techniques of Manufacture. Britannia, vol XXVIII, pp. 359-371.
Stuart, P.
1986 Provincie van een imperium: Romeinse oudheden uit Nederland in het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.
Internet:
Erik D. Schmidt on the Newstead plumata:
http://thearma.org/forum/viewtopic.php? ... ca3b58bf5c
http://p200.ezboard.com/Lorica-plumata- ... =978.topic
The plumata of unknown origin:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=1568
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - Matt Lukes - 07-13-2007
There's one black and white photo of the Newstead fragment in the online version of Curle's book, and I realized I had this photo of a fragment just recently, however I saved it back before I started recording the sources (websites, etc.) of images I saved, so I don't know where it's from. It is clearly of the 'usual' style though.
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - martijn.wijnhoven - 07-13-2007
Matt,
Thank you for your reply. Is there a possibility that you can still trace the origin of the specimen in the photo (and I understand that chances are slim)?
If not, I hope somebody else on this forum knows where this artefact comes from.
Best wishes,
Martijn
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - Erik D. Schmid - 07-13-2007
Could this be the Ouddorp piece? An excellent find in any case.
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - martijn.wijnhoven - 07-13-2007
Erik,
The ouddorp piece was published by Stuart (see below). The information in this book on the artefact is very poor (and is called a lorica hamata). It is accompanied by a small and not so clear photo, nonetheless the illustration shows that the ouddorp specimen is of a far larger size than this one.
Greetings,
Martijn
Stuart, P.
1986 Provincie van een imperium: Romeinse oudheden uit Nederland in het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.
armour - Vlad the Impala - 07-14-2007
I think it's one of my photo's I'm afraid I cannot recall from where, but I should be able to find it (eventually)
armour - Vlad the Impala - 07-14-2007
its from Xanten
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - martijn.wijnhoven - 07-14-2007
Thank you, Mark, for the information.
So instead of the 5 known specimens we began this topic with, there are now these 6:
1) Augsburg, Germany
2) Ouddorp, Netherlands
3) Newstead, UK
4) Usk, Wales
5) A piece of unknown origin
6) Xanten, Germany
I hope we can trace more plumatae through this forum or gather more information on this interesting type of armour.
Greetings,
Martijn
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - Dan Howard - 07-15-2007
Quote:Erik,"Lorica hamata" is just as accurate as "lorica plumata" (i.e. both are misleading). The Romans never used this term to refer to the mail and scales construction. They seem to have used the term "plumata" to describe any scale armour in which each scale had a vertical medial ridge. The backing is irrelevant.
The ouddorp piece was published by Stuart (see below). The information in this book on the artefact is very poor (and is called a lorica hamata).
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - Tarbicus - 07-15-2007
Quote:"Lorica hamata" is just as accurate as "lorica plumata" (i.e. both are misleading).If you accept 'hamata' as meaning 'hooked' it makes sense if you think of mail rings as being physically hooked to each other and then closed off. I don't think it's that misleading IMHO, but it's all down to how you think of the assembly.
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - martijn.wijnhoven - 07-15-2007
I am aware of the difficulties of using a proper name for this type of hybrid armour. Although the term plumata was used in Roman times it is indeed not entirely certain to what type of armour it refers to.
Robinson speculates and in the end gives the reader two options:
1) To scale armour with a medial ridge (that thus looked like feathers) (1975: 156).
2) To the hybrid form of armour that mixed scale with mail (1975: 173).
Quote:The Romans never used this term to refer to the mail and scales construction.
This seems to me quite a drastic conclusion and I am curious if there is any bibliographical reference to back this up. We simply don´t know what exactly was meant with the name plumata.
Quote:They seem to have used the term "plumata" to describe any scale armour in which each scale had a vertical medial ridge. The backing is irrelevant.
I agree that this is the most likely use for the word plumata (based solely on its meaning and the corresponding appearance of such armour). But if the Leiden piece was called lorica hamata by Stuart and the backing was irrelevant, is this then still an appropriate name? I never meant to imply that the name used by Stuart was erroneous, just wanted to point out how it was referred to in case somebody wanted to look it up and could not find any plumata mentioned in this source.
Greetings,
Martijn
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - Dan Howard - 07-16-2007
Justin uses the term plumata to describe the armour that the Parthians equipped their horses in. There is no way that Justin was referring to scale backed with mail.
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - martijn.wijnhoven - 07-17-2007
All cats are animals, not all animals are cats….
This only gives one context in which this word is used and does not necessarily exclude an alternate use. Again, I do agree for the most part with the commentaries, but I think the presentation in which they are given does not leave any room for alternatives and thus provides us with a false certainty. When there is reason to have some doubt, although a fairly good explanation can be given, it is still good science to express these doubts.
I hope somebody still has more information on the lorica plumata (meaning in this topic the mix of mail and scale).
Best wishes,
Martijn
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - AntonivsMarivsCongianocvs - 07-18-2007
Salve,
I've always read the term "cuirass" to refer to any outer armor, whether it’s linen… like Alexander’s Greek style to a Roman style muscle armor... which were of course was defiantly made of leather as Dan would agree :wink: ... (kidding, kidding, kidding) and “plumataâ€
Re: Known specimens of lorica plumata - AntonivsMarivsCongianocvs - 07-18-2007
Here's another original:
Roman scale armour, detail of a fragment. Each scale has six holes and the scales are linked in rows.
Photograph was taken in the Somerset County Museum in Taunton on 29-Oct-05
![[Image: 800px-Roman_scale_armour_detail.JPG]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Roman_scale_armour_detail.JPG/800px-Roman_scale_armour_detail.JPG)