More glue - bah

[Paullus Scipio]

We have been through the various words used in our sources before in some detail - we need only note that the Tube-and-Yoke corselet appears in Greek art after around 520 B.C., and that no writer from then on uses the Homeric term "linothorex" but rather, when describing foreign or Asiatic linen armour, "thorakes hoi lineoi"/lit: body-armour of linen and similar expressions. The clearest example is Xenophon who when speaking of Greek armour talks of just "spolades" and "thorakes", where from the context the latter refers most likely to bronze muscled corselets and the former to leather Tube-and-Yokes, some probably with metal scale re-inforcements.

Getting back on to the subject, as far as I am aware, earlier modern writers when describing Greek armour would suggest that the armour was of "leather or linen" ( e.g. Duncan Head, or J.K. Anderson),without specifying the structure any further, and I think it was Peter Connolly in his "Greek Armies"; MacDonald Educational 1977 who was the first to suggest glued linen layers ( a form of ancient fibreglass? :lol: ), or at the very least to popularise the idea. Unfortunately, as Dan has pointed out, there is really nothing at all to substantiate this by way of evidence - literary or archaeological, and there are some very serious objections to the idea, both practical ( weatherproofing such a corselet to last years of use?) and cultural reasons - no trace of such a technology, with the possible exception of some possible 'papier mache' layered theatrical masks - also suggested by Peter Connolly !!