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Finished Linothorax
#46
The Mars of Todi is most likely wearing scale armour. The plates are laced to a foundation that has been tailored like a linothorax. It is possible that it is lamellar but it depends on whether the assembly requires the foundation for structural support.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#47
I, too , thought they were plates but some have cited this fresco to show that the armor may have been linen. The white coloring would seem to suggest that is was so.

Peter Connolly, in "Greece and Rome at War" (1996 ed.), opines that the "Mars of Todi" shows plates, "lamellar" to be precise. But a new edition of his book was published two years ago so he may have reassessed his opinion.

Hey Chris,

Very nice work !

I remember seeing your armor on another thread.

The pteruges look great Smile

~Theo
Jaime
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#48
I too was believing it to be scale but after this fresco and enother one also Etruscan, I think it is linen. If it is linen,I suppose it can't be quilted? And there is a find of Scythian armor with similar construction but it's leather. It looks too thin to be plates over other matterial, but I'm not sure.
Connolly has not updated the "scale" theory in his latest edition.
Khairete
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#49
Yeah, I'd say quilted linen. Thanks for the image theo!
Michael D. Hafer [aka Mythos Ruler, aka eX | Vesper]
In peace men bury their fathers. In war men bury their sons.
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#50
All you have to do it try and make a reconstruction. You won't be able to make quilted cloth look like either the Mars of Todi or the Fresco and still provide any sort of protection. IMO Connolly is correct about the Mars of Todi. Dunno about the fresco. All illustrations can be interpreted dozens of ways. People see what they want to see.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#51
Chris
I just jointed. Your linothorax is great. Would you send me the photos?
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#52
I don't know the date of these sculptures, but they seem to clearly show scales overlapped on one side- as both Dan and I suggested for the armor reconstructed in this thread.


[attachment=336]2364829060_1608cc4ca1.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=335]2363996741_7f9d0159a4.jpg[/attachment]

These scales are very much like the rectangular scales, often iron, that we see from Assyria. It could indicate that this was brought to Italy via Carthage. Iron corslets were evidently a common armor type in Carthage and could have been of this form. One explanation for the white scales might be that they were of rawhide and whitened.


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Paul M. Bardunias
MODERATOR: [url:2dqwu8yc]http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=4100[/url]
A Spartan, being asked a question, answered "No." And when the questioner said, "You lie," the Spartan said, "You see, then, that it is stupid of you to ask questions to which you already know the answer!"
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#53
Personally i don't see why one should asume that these scales should be iron(or bronze,like Connolly suggested) In all coloured depictions(and there is a number of them-i know of at least three off the top of my head) they are shown white-while iron in the same paintings is shown blue-grey. And having examined the Mars of Todi closely,i can say with certainty that there are many clues that point to it meant to be leather.
I can't connect the Asyrian armours to 4th century Etruscan cuirasses,to be honest.
Khaire
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#54
Quote:And having examined the Mars of Todi closely,i can say with certainty that there are many clues that point to it meant to be leather.

Can you elaborate? I've been staring at it for a while now as well as the one that Paul just posted, and see very individual plates in place here. But, I can't see any signs on these figures to suggest that the material can be revealed by observation. It could be plates of horn, iron, bronze, leather or bubble gum. Nothing to these figures suggests a specific material beyond a couple of paintings showing them as white... Like the one you showed me the other day, but those are not the statues. They may in fact not even be showing the same sort of armor. Considering the amount of speculation involved here, I think that common characteristics with known armor types is the most efficient way to theorize about what material was really used.

Thus, following from the Assyrian and then the Scythian traditions and considering the widespread use of bronze scale among the Greeks, it seems reasonable to suggest the use of metallic plates on these armors. No where in the ancient world do we see composite armor of leather or fabric to suggest that it's made from hundreds of small squares of such material. It does not follow the same sort of trend in observation as does the theory of them being made from metal. The fact that a couple of paintings show white on the entire surface of the armor is not enough evidence to suggest that they must have been made from fabric... It would be most reasonable to suggest that the depiction is of quilted armor in those paintings if the color was taken into serious consideration, and also safe to say that there are substantial differences between those depictions and ones like the Mars of Todi.

-Gregory
Gregory J. Liebau
The Bronze Age Center
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#55
Quote:It could be plates of horn, iron, bronze, leather or bubble gum.

Although mastic, a type of chickle-like gum, was well known to the ancient Greeks, I find the last option highly unlikely.

Quote:No where in the ancient world do we see composite armor of leather or fabric to suggest that it's made from hundreds of small squares of such material.

What they are suggesting is that the stitching pattern of a quilted armor looks like a lot of little rectangles. I have seen many Byzantine reconstructions that look like this.

There is a tradition of rawhide scales as well.

Quote:I can't connect the Asyrian armours to 4th century Etruscan cuirasses,to be honest.

The scales separated by bands which secure them seem pretty consistant to me:
[attachment=375]ASSYRIAscale.jpg[/attachment]


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Paul M. Bardunias
MODERATOR: [url:2dqwu8yc]http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=4100[/url]
A Spartan, being asked a question, answered "No." And when the questioner said, "You lie," the Spartan said, "You see, then, that it is stupid of you to ask questions to which you already know the answer!"
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#56
I don't have a probem with the Mars of Todi being made of leather - leather scale, not quilted leather. Metal is more likely IMO
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#57
Quote:In all coloured depictions(and there is a number of them-i know of at least three off the top of my head) they are shown white-while iron in the same paintings is shown blue-grey.


An immediate response to that is that the white could indicate tinned metal while the blue-grey is untreated iron. Off course the colours could mean a lot of things -- all I'm saying that different colours don't rule out iron.
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#58
OK,so now lets speak about the 4th century etruscan armour,shall we?
Here is a photo of the Mars of Todi i took last Easter. Flash was forbiden but i switched off the camera and when i switched on the settings of no-flash were cancelled and this was the only photo with flash i took in the museum. Luckily,at least it was a good photo.
[Image: 4663203664_962bc23088_b.jpg]
In case you can't see it from the photo,all the bands that separate the rows of scales,together with all the outer esges and the edges of all the pteryges consist on a thread that stitch the rows together.The visible part of each scale has 4-5 stitches,and i asume as many on the invisible part of the overlap.
The best coloured illustration of this type of armour is from an etruscan tomband is this one:
[Image: 3234531759_dab78fc723_b.jpg]
The basic difference with the Mars of Todi and this one is that the latter has a band of solid matterial around the stomach,of the same colour as the rest of the scales and the pteryges. It is also obvious that the bronze helmet and greaves are yellow. And that the iron attachment fittings are bluish/grey. In the same painting,the iron weapons are also of this bluish/grey colour and there is one more ordinary tube&yoke cuirass that is of the exact same colour:
[Image: stitchedefin.jpg]
The only other depictions of the same type of armour are also etruscan of the 4th century. There are no greek ones.
Here is another one that somehow Connolly translated into a bronze scale cuirass:
[Image: etruscanmuralorcus.gif]
It is a mystery to me why this cuirass should be asumed to be bronze,when the "scales" are the same colour as the pteryges and different colour than -say- the yellow faced shield! And different than the iron spear point.
Another Etruscan painting:
[Image: etrusk2.jpg]
It is not very clear but you can see the horizontal bands that separate the body and with little imagination the shoulder flaps too. It speaks for itself,but you can see the difference in colour to both the bronze armour and the iron sword. And it is very similar to the Mars of Todi also to the use of solid plates in the top of the shoulder flaps,that here is shown to be bronze plate.
There are examples of similar leather scales. This skythian cuirass for instance:
[Image: leatherscale6thbce.png]
The most similar example in bronze that i could find is this skythian example:
[Image: 34centurybc.jpg]
To me at least the similarity of leather scales to the Mars of Todi is much more pronounced.
Finally,too more pictures of details of the Mars of Todi. Only by the looks of it one can't be conclusive,but to me it looks much more like the behavior of leather.[Image: sdc12659.jpg]
[Image: sdc12658b.jpg]

So,friends,i really can't see the likeliness of it being metal,nor insipred by the Asyrian armour. Fifth century Etruscans used typical tube and yokes identical to the Greeks,or bell cuirasses. The Greeks never adopted the armour,or at least not in such a scale to have been represented in their art. And there are other examples of similar armour made of leather used by people much closer to the Etruscans than the Asyrians,both geographically and chronologically.
The comment about the possibility of them being tinned iron or bronze...it almost doesn't deserve to be argued against,since there is no indication that the Etruscans tinned their helmets,greaves or other piece of armour to any great extend,whereas all depictions show the cuirass white,like the pteryges.
I'm sorry if finally the cuirass wasn't as impressive as gleaming bronze or iron like illustrators like to fashion,but to me this armour seems as impressive in white leather!
Khairete
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#59
These are two rather different questions. I have held from the first that leather, probably rawhide, is what we see in white thorax.

Now to say that long rectangular scales, secured only at the top and bottom edge by a row of stitching which can be a narrow band or covered by a wide decorative border, developed independantly in Italy to me would require some proof because it is not a common type of scale and because of the long tradition of exactly the same thing in the near east.

Quote:And there are other examples of similar armour made of leather used by people much closer to the Etruscans than the Asyrians,both geographically and chronologically.

I'm not sure what people you have in mind. Carthaginians have ties to the same tradition as the Assyrians and surely were exposed to this type of scale. The Etruscans themselves are ultimately Anatolian. To me the armor looks like the Assyrian style of scale, perhaps made commonly in a cheaper leather, mated with a T-Y pattern. It need not have come via Carthage, Greeks surely knew of this type of scale, but that route might explain the popularity. I have not seen the archer at Aegina up close, but the pattern looks similar.

[attachment=379]aegina_archer_cl.jpg[/attachment]
Quote:So,friends,i really can't see the likeliness of it being metal,nor insipred by the Asyrian armour.


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Paul M. Bardunias
MODERATOR: [url:2dqwu8yc]http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=4100[/url]
A Spartan, being asked a question, answered "No." And when the questioner said, "You lie," the Spartan said, "You see, then, that it is stupid of you to ask questions to which you already know the answer!"
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#60
The arguement i was fighting against was: "The Asyrians used similar armour,thus the Etruscan version must have been metal,iron or bronze"
If the Etruscans coppied Asyrian armour this seems quite unlikely to me,but it is not something that bothers me much. The people i was reffering to in the previous post were the Skythians,who did use leather scale stitched to the top and bottom,like in the leather cuirass i posted above.
We have a fairly detailed idea by now of what this etruscan armour looked like. Much better idea than the typical greek T-Y. Now the question is what matterial,and if you think that metal can confront the matterial i posted in the previous post,then you have to find some supporting evidence,and to me the Asyrians are too far.
And books and magazines certainly have a too biased idea like you see in the photos.
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The Aphaia archer(Heracles) does indeed have something similar...the only difference seems to be that in all etruscan sculptures,even the statuettes,there is clearly a thread running all along the rows of scales whereas in Heracles there is no indication of stitching.

Khaire
Giannis


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Giannis K. Hoplite
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