10-04-2021, 08:33 PM
Without disregarding what Sean and Todd say, I was a tiny part of that after all and agree in large part, the question of what all those tube and yokes were made from is still fundamental to every Hoplite reenactor as we have to wear something to reenact what we see on all those depictions. Sean did an excellent job regarding the History of the Idea of Glued Linen Armour and Todd is serious about attempting to make a viable linen tube and yoke. I never quote Aldrete as I don't want to just rely on one source, but to me he does prove the viability of layered linen armor, glued or not. The late Eddie Cheshire of the UK based Archaeological Leather Group proved the viability of glued layered linen armor in a more scientific measurable manner and his work and our too brief correspondence has had a larger influence on my thinking than Aldrete.
Viability is the easy part, plausibility is the hard.
I can't get on Facebook at the moment to access data on a rare artifact that Paul Bardunias has mentioned a few times. As I recall it was a scrap of ancient linen shield facing that was glued onto wood. Not sure where it was discovered, but I think it is the only "evidence" we have of glue being used as an adhesive to bind linen to anything in a military context. Is this an anomaly or was this something so common to not be worth mentioning? Hard to say of course in the military context.
I feel we all do, or should, agree that adhesives and glues were ubiquitous in the Eastern Mediterranean world...it's what kept the spearhead and sauroter on the dory after all. A sauroter in a UK museum still has pitch inside. Now this is not evidence of usage of an adhesive with layered linen in the body armor context, but it does indicate that the availability and efficacy of glues/adhesives were not unknown to the Hoplite.
Moreover, in the absence of direct evidence there are other interesting ideas that are being explored and should be discussed. Apparently veg tanned leather was not common in the Hoplite era, oil tanning seems to be what was used (for reasons that escape me) and I am told such leather is very difficult to add vibrant colors to due to the oils used in the tanning process...so what explains our new awareness of garish colored tube and yokes being used by Hoplites?
We also need to understand that the type of linen possibly used to make the Amasis armor might not be the type of linen we have now according to none other than Hero Granger-Taylor. She thinks it was spiced and twisted ultra fine linen rather than the more familiar draft-spun linen. Spiced linen seems to have been more widely used in Europe than once thought, based upon recent hard evidence, and then around 600 BC becomes rare and it is speculated that it might have continued to made for specialty pieces like armor. Ancient spun linen is not as fine as spliced linen therefore less dense material can be created for such things as armor, unless one uses multiple layers. Density is a critical factor and that's the same with leather armor as well.
Linen as an available material, like glue, was ubiquitous in the Eastern Med. and bovine hide was not. The Greeks had cattle, no doubt about that and imported hides, but the cattle they ate (rarely) were young males with the occasional ox, and their young soft hides were poorly suited for armor. The UK based Archaeological Leather Group has some excellent free publications on what types of hide are best for armor, and why in minute molecular detail. If all those tube and yokes were leather where did all that tough dense oil tanned leather come from?
There's also been some recent interesting work on rubbing/impregnating kaolin (a white clay) into linen armor as there is a bit of written evidence that points in that direction. It would help explain those depictions of white tube and yokes, but my guess it was the use of natron as a bleaching agent that made them white, if they were linen, as natron has an added benefit of being a known anti-septic used for treating cuts.
What about Alum tawing? Unless there is some new data it was here on RAT that this technique was found to be unused in the Hoplite era.
Please don't quote to me all the various translations of the word "Spolas" as I've considered them all, and in context, and they are vague at best and at worst point away from the Tube and Yoke.
I certainly do not dismiss the use of leather for the tube and yoke, it is completely plausible that some tough dense bovine hide was available to make very effective leather armor without scales. Was there enough of that during the Hoplite era to outfit all the tens of thousands of Hoplites over many centuries? I am skeptical and when I asked that question to Jeremy McInerney of the Univ. of Pennsylvania and author of The Cattle of the Sun: Cows and Culture in the World of the Ancient Greeks he pondered a bit and said "no."
If there was not enough appropriate bovine hide then the only other material available in quantity would be linen. Did they use some type of glue to keep the layers intact as the armor was being constructed...no hard evidence yet but I'm still looking and before CV was talking to a lot of people. The problem is not that we don't have the technology to find it, it's that nobody is looking for it.
Viability is the easy part, plausibility is the hard.
I can't get on Facebook at the moment to access data on a rare artifact that Paul Bardunias has mentioned a few times. As I recall it was a scrap of ancient linen shield facing that was glued onto wood. Not sure where it was discovered, but I think it is the only "evidence" we have of glue being used as an adhesive to bind linen to anything in a military context. Is this an anomaly or was this something so common to not be worth mentioning? Hard to say of course in the military context.
I feel we all do, or should, agree that adhesives and glues were ubiquitous in the Eastern Mediterranean world...it's what kept the spearhead and sauroter on the dory after all. A sauroter in a UK museum still has pitch inside. Now this is not evidence of usage of an adhesive with layered linen in the body armor context, but it does indicate that the availability and efficacy of glues/adhesives were not unknown to the Hoplite.
Moreover, in the absence of direct evidence there are other interesting ideas that are being explored and should be discussed. Apparently veg tanned leather was not common in the Hoplite era, oil tanning seems to be what was used (for reasons that escape me) and I am told such leather is very difficult to add vibrant colors to due to the oils used in the tanning process...so what explains our new awareness of garish colored tube and yokes being used by Hoplites?
We also need to understand that the type of linen possibly used to make the Amasis armor might not be the type of linen we have now according to none other than Hero Granger-Taylor. She thinks it was spiced and twisted ultra fine linen rather than the more familiar draft-spun linen. Spiced linen seems to have been more widely used in Europe than once thought, based upon recent hard evidence, and then around 600 BC becomes rare and it is speculated that it might have continued to made for specialty pieces like armor. Ancient spun linen is not as fine as spliced linen therefore less dense material can be created for such things as armor, unless one uses multiple layers. Density is a critical factor and that's the same with leather armor as well.
Linen as an available material, like glue, was ubiquitous in the Eastern Med. and bovine hide was not. The Greeks had cattle, no doubt about that and imported hides, but the cattle they ate (rarely) were young males with the occasional ox, and their young soft hides were poorly suited for armor. The UK based Archaeological Leather Group has some excellent free publications on what types of hide are best for armor, and why in minute molecular detail. If all those tube and yokes were leather where did all that tough dense oil tanned leather come from?
There's also been some recent interesting work on rubbing/impregnating kaolin (a white clay) into linen armor as there is a bit of written evidence that points in that direction. It would help explain those depictions of white tube and yokes, but my guess it was the use of natron as a bleaching agent that made them white, if they were linen, as natron has an added benefit of being a known anti-septic used for treating cuts.
What about Alum tawing? Unless there is some new data it was here on RAT that this technique was found to be unused in the Hoplite era.
Please don't quote to me all the various translations of the word "Spolas" as I've considered them all, and in context, and they are vague at best and at worst point away from the Tube and Yoke.
I certainly do not dismiss the use of leather for the tube and yoke, it is completely plausible that some tough dense bovine hide was available to make very effective leather armor without scales. Was there enough of that during the Hoplite era to outfit all the tens of thousands of Hoplites over many centuries? I am skeptical and when I asked that question to Jeremy McInerney of the Univ. of Pennsylvania and author of The Cattle of the Sun: Cows and Culture in the World of the Ancient Greeks he pondered a bit and said "no."
If there was not enough appropriate bovine hide then the only other material available in quantity would be linen. Did they use some type of glue to keep the layers intact as the armor was being constructed...no hard evidence yet but I'm still looking and before CV was talking to a lot of people. The problem is not that we don't have the technology to find it, it's that nobody is looking for it.
Joe Balmos
