09-16-2006, 08:04 AM
Quote:Personally I would be happy if the term "scale" was not used and this type of armour was subsumed into a category of lamellar. Perhaps calling it "backed lamellar" or "reinforced lamellar".
The Palmyrene relief is lamellar because Robinson says so: remember he was first and foremost an oriental armour specialist, and only came to Roman stuff comparatively late in life. It is heavily stylised, but very different from depictions of scale, having as it does the horizontal lacing ridges shown between the rows of lamellae. As for the terminology, those suggested above are rather tautologous; here's what Robinson says:
Quote:...true lamellar armour wherein the small rectangular plates with rounded upper ends were laced into horizontal bands and joined into a flexible unlined defensive garment with a series of vertical laces. The Armour of Imperial Rome, 162
The Qin dynasty armour depicted on the terracotta warriors is not true lamellar (it is, amongst other things, apparently articulated on silk and has a complex system of overlaps on the plates). There is an article on it in Antiquity for 1989. Don't pay to access it; if anybody wants a copy I'll willingly let them have one.
I have some slides of the Catalka lamellar (I examined it in 1987) somewhere which I will try and dig out and scan them/it.
Mike Bishop
