01-13-2010, 03:00 PM
Quote:All that was needed was to look at contemporary descriptions and surviving examples of layered cloth armour - all of which are quilted. Examples include the European padded jack, India peti, Aztec ichcahuipilli, the recent Mycenaean find at Patras, etc. Resources would be far better spent on examining the protective capability of real armour rather than wasted on unfounded speculation. The chance that glue was used in the construction of Greek linen armour is so low as to be negligible. Any research on the protective capability of glued armour tells us nothing useful about historical armour.
There is so much that could be done with quilted linen. Different types of thread; different weights of cloth; varying the number of layers; varying the type of quilting; is there a difference in the strength of bleached vs unbleached cloth; etc.
To quote from Cawkwell's "Orthodoxy and Hoplites" discussing the firm stance many take on the 'orthodox' way of hoplite battle (p.385):
"Against such fixity of belief, one can make little progress..."
Scott B.