03-01-2013, 11:41 PM
My first inclination regarding use of bones, teeth and furs as armor decoration is "no, not used".
I went digging. You can access the Beasley vase database at Oxford (google) and search for warrior images. I didn't see any images that would support BT&F decoration. By convention, Heracles wears a lionskin (and carries a club); Athena is usually depicted with Zeus' aegis (wooly or skin with snakes & Medusa head).
I expect bone could be used for buttons/toggles. BT&F seems to denote "not-Greek" - Centaurs, satyrs, barbarians and semi-mythical creatures of all sorts. Also the lower classes - shepherds, peasants...
I can remember seeing images with fleeced-torsoed warriors, but I can't remember where (RAT topic?) and I think they were archaic as opposed to classical or Hellenistic warriors - very early.
A leather spolas was about it. Bronzy-brassy bling for the most part. Oh yeah, horse hair crests were used.
HTH. The Beasley is a great archive to get lost in for half a day or more.
I went digging. You can access the Beasley vase database at Oxford (google) and search for warrior images. I didn't see any images that would support BT&F decoration. By convention, Heracles wears a lionskin (and carries a club); Athena is usually depicted with Zeus' aegis (wooly or skin with snakes & Medusa head).
I expect bone could be used for buttons/toggles. BT&F seems to denote "not-Greek" - Centaurs, satyrs, barbarians and semi-mythical creatures of all sorts. Also the lower classes - shepherds, peasants...
I can remember seeing images with fleeced-torsoed warriors, but I can't remember where (RAT topic?) and I think they were archaic as opposed to classical or Hellenistic warriors - very early.
A leather spolas was about it. Bronzy-brassy bling for the most part. Oh yeah, horse hair crests were used.
HTH. The Beasley is a great archive to get lost in for half a day or more.
Cheryl Boeckmann
