Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)

[Dan Howard]

Also, boiled leather scale was possible, and used extensively in the middle ages.

I really don't have any experience with hardened leather and for every naysayer I can produce several enthusiasts. It's a matter of expectations.

I thought we were discussing whether the musculata was made of leather. If you are expanding the argument to claim that leather scale/lamellar or layered leather was worn then we are wasting our time. Leather scale/lamellar was used extensively in the Bronze Age and in Asia. It was used in Medieval Europe but not "extensively". Some examples were also found at Dura Europos so at least some in the Roman Empire made use of it. We have a couple of examples of middle eastern segmented leather dating to the middle ages. There is also plenty of evidence that hardened leather cuirasses were worn over mail in the middle ages. None of this is relevant to what might have been worn in Classical Rome.

The images you have clearly show a flexible garment. If it was intended to be used as armour then it would be rigid. Unless there is evidence of reinforcing plates (e.g. scales) - in which case they would be squamata or plumata, not musculata. It doesn't matter whether these flexible examples were made of leather or not since they cannot have been intended to be worn as armour. You keep mentioning hardened leather and then show us images of flexible garments. You can't have it both ways. A musculata made from hardened leather is not flexible.