Lamellar Armour

[FAVENTIANVS]

Well, I think that the scale holes rule however... We know from other examples that art isn't always right compared to archaeological evidence. Art is thought to look beautiful not useful, sometimes coincides with reality sometimes not.. depending on the artist and his context... What do you think?

[tlclark]

On the scales I think that's right.

One thing I've noticed about Byz. Lamellae, is that the holes are set rather far in from the edge, so that the distance from the edge to the holes is about half the distance between the two holes.

That means that every row could have a double layer and the lamellae could be laid side by side like we see in the art.

Travis

[FAVENTIANVS]

Or tightly overlapped, being thicker...
Probably both options could have coexisted.

[tlclark]

Faventianus,

Yeah I think so. That's the thing about reconstruction, we think in terms of the one right way to do it. They only had to think had to do it, which means that there were capable of more flexible solutions. Sometimes it helps just to take the materials in hand and just think, "Now how would I do this?" and see what you come up with.

Here's another diagram showing how the byz. era lamellae look in the art and how I think they might have been laced.

[FAVENTIANVS]

What are the pointed ones?

[tlclark]

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

What pointed ones?

[tlclark]

Here's a guy in Austrailia that's reconstructed his with the plates side by side.

As I understand it, there are plates on the interior as well.

http://www.levantia.com.au/military/lamellar.html

Travis

[FAVENTIANVS]

I mean the pointed ones on the last image you posted.
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/download.php?id=432

[tlclark]

Sorry, I'm confused, I must be missing something.

Do you mean the lamellar plates? Which one is pointed? they are all round-topped.

The lamellar plate on the left shows a single plate with the lacing through the six holes.

The right shows how the plates are knit together and the dashed outline shows how the plates on the back side would have been attached, (but mine's a little off now that I look at it, I dashed this off)

Travis

[FAVENTIANVS]

I mean the scales drawn with pointed line.

[tlclark]

Oh! Ok, Sorry.

Those are just like the other lamellae, they are just drawn to show where they would fit in.

They would be invisible to the exterior but would allow the parallel columns to be be stitched together.

Obviously I need a better diagram!!

Let me work on it.

Travis

[Dan Howard]

Locking-scale armour does not need a fabric base to be attached to. Therefore it is different from common scale armour, but it is clearly different from lamellar armour because locking scales are attached together by means of wire staples and not laced, like true lamellae

This definition of locking scale is too narrow. There are plenty of examples of very similar construtions using lacing and not wire. Just not by the Romans. As I said it was common in the Bronze Age in the Near East. It was also used in China.

[aitor iriarte]

Dan,
Probably you are right, but I try to concentrate mainly on Roman period while I struggle for not becoming lost in 'battles of/about words' :? . To my mind, and armour of stapled scales behaves different than other of laced scales.
About so-called Roman copper-alloy lamellae, those which I've seen were locking scale. The pattern of holes differ from those on surviving later true lamellae.

Aitor

[egfroth]

Here's a guy in Austrailia that's reconstructed his with the plates side by side.

As I understand it, there are plates on the interior as well.

http://www.levantia.com.au/military/lamellar.html

Travis

Actually, there's only one layer in Tim's design. I've made a reconstruction to his design - you can see it here. It shows a diagram of the lacing system and various photos showing the construction.

There's no real need for a second layer. There's sufficient overlap for good protection with a single one. Any point you might get hit, the weapon has to go through two layers of leather and two layers of steel. This means it can be fairly lightweight without sacrificing protection. It's also wonderfully flexible.

My lamellar is slightly different from Tim's. He made his with adjacent horizontal rows of plates directly above each other, as shown in many pictorial representations. I made mine with the rows offset by half the width of a plate, as shown in other pictures.

Note, however, that this is an 11th century AD style. Earlier lamellars were different.

You can see Tim in his lamellar at an event to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople here