Linothorax vs Spolas

[Dan Howard]

Hi Thomas, welcome. Your English is excellent BTW.

How can you tell what is used as a backing for the scales in an illustration? We can't even tell what the scales are made from. I suspect that leather was used for Scythian armour but we can't assume that without physical evidence. Do we have a surviving example of Scythian scale armour from the relevant time period that has been backed with leather? I know about the rawhide one in the MET but it is too late to be relevant. Are there others?

I'm also unsure about using Scythian manufacture to support Greek manufacture. A nomadic tribe has a lot of hide available and not much in the way of woven textiles. If hide is plentiful and they had to import textiles, then one would expect most of their clothing to be made from hide. Greece had a thriving textile industry. Throughout history you can correlate soft armour with the prominant type of clothing. If they had a lot of textile clothing (e.g. western Europe) then most of the soft armours were made from textle. If they had a lot of hide clothing (e.g. Asian steppes) then most of the soft armour was made from hide.