07-21-2016, 04:57 AM
Ah right Scott, the co-author, I keep forgetting. We are sort of on the same side of this discussion and my friend Dan (definitely not a bad apple) is just one of many on the other side to one degree or another. Professor Aldrete has certainly been raked over the coals here on this forum, but that's how it goes when an academic introduces an idea that others do not agree with, and I'm sure he's not losing sleep over it. Some of the attacks have indeed been silly, while others have been serious and have broadened the debate.
Glued linen was common enough in the Ancient Mediterranean world as I think every mummy mask was some sort of glued linen and the practice continued well into the period when glued linen body armor could (I said could) have been used by the Greeks. It can be quite sturdy I'm told by conservators at the Penn Museum where they have many. If you have some unpublished definitive proof that glued linen armor was made and used by the Greeks there is nobody more than me that would like to hear it.
I have not been able to find any serious academic who will state in public that the Greeks used glued linen body armor, but that does not mean there are none. I would very interested in who else supports this idea and why?
So where does the discussion go? For me it goes East to Gordian in Turkey. I've just read From Minos to Midas, Ancient Cloth Production in the Aegean and in Anatolia by Brendan Burke, Oxbow Books 2010. The Penn Museum, where I volunteer, has been digging at Gordian for something like 60 years and not much from it seems has been made available to the public, like some large textile artifacts. The book discusses linen production at Gordian and insinuates that it was relatively large scale, even industrial, rather than a cottage industry. Could Anatolia, specifically Phrygia, be the source of the large amounts of linen sheet required to make the thousands of sets of body armor needed for centuries by the unruly Greeks? Bronze was undeniably an important military commodity for the Greeks and all that tin and copper was imported so the idea of having to import such is feasible.
Just because it could have come from Phrygia in the amounts needed may not be enough to convince skeptics, some of whom point to a lack of evidence of flax production on the scale required as evidence arguing against linen body armor.
So, until we find undeniably Mainland Greek glued linen armor artifacts (need not be found in Greece) or a very clear ancient text directly discussing glued linen armor from the time we think it was used there will always be doubts.
It's that search for certainty again.
Glued linen was common enough in the Ancient Mediterranean world as I think every mummy mask was some sort of glued linen and the practice continued well into the period when glued linen body armor could (I said could) have been used by the Greeks. It can be quite sturdy I'm told by conservators at the Penn Museum where they have many. If you have some unpublished definitive proof that glued linen armor was made and used by the Greeks there is nobody more than me that would like to hear it.
I have not been able to find any serious academic who will state in public that the Greeks used glued linen body armor, but that does not mean there are none. I would very interested in who else supports this idea and why?
So where does the discussion go? For me it goes East to Gordian in Turkey. I've just read From Minos to Midas, Ancient Cloth Production in the Aegean and in Anatolia by Brendan Burke, Oxbow Books 2010. The Penn Museum, where I volunteer, has been digging at Gordian for something like 60 years and not much from it seems has been made available to the public, like some large textile artifacts. The book discusses linen production at Gordian and insinuates that it was relatively large scale, even industrial, rather than a cottage industry. Could Anatolia, specifically Phrygia, be the source of the large amounts of linen sheet required to make the thousands of sets of body armor needed for centuries by the unruly Greeks? Bronze was undeniably an important military commodity for the Greeks and all that tin and copper was imported so the idea of having to import such is feasible.
Just because it could have come from Phrygia in the amounts needed may not be enough to convince skeptics, some of whom point to a lack of evidence of flax production on the scale required as evidence arguing against linen body armor.
So, until we find undeniably Mainland Greek glued linen armor artifacts (need not be found in Greece) or a very clear ancient text directly discussing glued linen armor from the time we think it was used there will always be doubts.
It's that search for certainty again.
