02-03-2012, 07:34 AM
I am not advocating the wide use of crests..So the 550 survivors with fits my point neatly.
Point being very small percent used crests.
Finding one of them certainly means they existed, not finding more again fits the point we both seem to have - they were just rare.
Now when we cleared that...
''Of all the hundreds of years of the Corinthian helmets use....only 550 exist intact. No crests. What you are holding up as an example is either trophia, votive or was so unusual it was worth dedicating to a temple and thus it survived. ''
What about it makes you believe it was singular, votive, trophia, or unusual???
I don't see anything unusual about it other that it chalenges the organic material 'mantra' you support.
I give you real, material proof, a real piece of armor from 6th bc...and you counter me just with the theory that not finding any proof proves the existance of it (organic crest holders)?!
hock:
''Of the normal common crests depicted.....organic materials like wood and horsehair. ''
Would you explain to me how is exactly wood and organic material depicted in black style pottery for example, or in bronze or stone figurines?!?
''Easy to obtain or replace when damaged and relatively cheap.''
You can not know that it was of any importance back then.It is just modern logics projected into far far antiquity. Not a fact. Why is bronze irreparable and why do you think someone rich or important enough to carry crest had to worry about repair.After all wars were not waged every weekend, not even every year, and crest wasn't damaged in every conflict right.
By using modern logics such as that, Greek hoplites couldn't have used either heavy bronze armor, nor the sound/vision restricted corinthian helmet... yet they did...for centuries.
Or were all of them just votive or parade pieces? :roll: And in fact only shown in pottery while all of Greece used linen armor - because after all it has much better characteristics than bronze. :roll:
''The fact that no armor or bronze is found there is more likely due to reuse than non existence. ''
Same would be for crests as well, no? By armor I mean panoplia, from crest to toe. Not breastplate alone.
It was also due to the fact it was around two and a half millenia ago, and to the fact we did not raise 5m or Lakonian soil in search of Archaic armor, and to the fact Sparta was always small town / collection of villages, that it was sacked at least a dozen times since then, that same pieces were used and left in many other battlefields long after their production was stopped, and to the fact it was reused as you said etc...
And no, I would not draw the organic armor conclusion because I only see evidence of bronze one, and no single evidence of organic. And I would call it most bronzed up, with the best panoplia quality/quantity because of the system which was not ''every man buys for himself'' like in the most of the Greece at the time.
You should really differ fact from founded assumption, and both from pure speculation drawn from our personal logics, wishes etc...
For example you say as it is a well known fact that Spartans had red crest hair? Why? As seen where? As said by who? Frank Miller?
''Thus a commander could see which unit or 'regiment' was where in his line.''
I would not interfere with your personal work but this is an unfounded speculation with sources only in modern logics projected in the Archaic Greece. Chances are they never ever thought about it. No matter how logical it seems to us today. Again we live in 2012, they lived in far BC.
Point being very small percent used crests.
Finding one of them certainly means they existed, not finding more again fits the point we both seem to have - they were just rare.
Now when we cleared that...
''Of all the hundreds of years of the Corinthian helmets use....only 550 exist intact. No crests. What you are holding up as an example is either trophia, votive or was so unusual it was worth dedicating to a temple and thus it survived. ''
What about it makes you believe it was singular, votive, trophia, or unusual???
I don't see anything unusual about it other that it chalenges the organic material 'mantra' you support.
I give you real, material proof, a real piece of armor from 6th bc...and you counter me just with the theory that not finding any proof proves the existance of it (organic crest holders)?!
hock: ''Of the normal common crests depicted.....organic materials like wood and horsehair. ''
Would you explain to me how is exactly wood and organic material depicted in black style pottery for example, or in bronze or stone figurines?!?
''Easy to obtain or replace when damaged and relatively cheap.''
You can not know that it was of any importance back then.It is just modern logics projected into far far antiquity. Not a fact. Why is bronze irreparable and why do you think someone rich or important enough to carry crest had to worry about repair.After all wars were not waged every weekend, not even every year, and crest wasn't damaged in every conflict right.
By using modern logics such as that, Greek hoplites couldn't have used either heavy bronze armor, nor the sound/vision restricted corinthian helmet... yet they did...for centuries.
Or were all of them just votive or parade pieces? :roll: And in fact only shown in pottery while all of Greece used linen armor - because after all it has much better characteristics than bronze. :roll:
''The fact that no armor or bronze is found there is more likely due to reuse than non existence. ''
Same would be for crests as well, no? By armor I mean panoplia, from crest to toe. Not breastplate alone.
It was also due to the fact it was around two and a half millenia ago, and to the fact we did not raise 5m or Lakonian soil in search of Archaic armor, and to the fact Sparta was always small town / collection of villages, that it was sacked at least a dozen times since then, that same pieces were used and left in many other battlefields long after their production was stopped, and to the fact it was reused as you said etc...
And no, I would not draw the organic armor conclusion because I only see evidence of bronze one, and no single evidence of organic. And I would call it most bronzed up, with the best panoplia quality/quantity because of the system which was not ''every man buys for himself'' like in the most of the Greece at the time.
You should really differ fact from founded assumption, and both from pure speculation drawn from our personal logics, wishes etc...
For example you say as it is a well known fact that Spartans had red crest hair? Why? As seen where? As said by who? Frank Miller?
''Thus a commander could see which unit or 'regiment' was where in his line.''
I would not interfere with your personal work but this is an unfounded speculation with sources only in modern logics projected in the Archaic Greece. Chances are they never ever thought about it. No matter how logical it seems to us today. Again we live in 2012, they lived in far BC.
Nikolas Gulan
