MANICA Reconstruction

[Matt Lukes]

And now that I think of it the internal leathering arrangement makes more sense for 'front' wear- there are 4 straps along much of the length from the top but they're along the outer edges and about 4.5cm in from each edge, resulting in a large open space in the middle of the wider plates and that doubtless allows for a minimum of interference with the significant overlapping that occurs when the elbow bends. If the piece were not intended to be worn centrally, the straps wouldn't need to be so far apart. The same holds true for the '4th' strap which ends before the wrist on the thumb side- since the hand bends in rather more than it bends out, no extra leathering there aids in complete flexation whereas over the back of the hand it seemed to be a bit of a problem as when the hand was bent forward complely there was more of a gap on one side than the other where there was a leathering strap.

So there we go- not only does the front wear make sense from a protective point-of-view, the arrangement of the leathering definitely supports it. Very cool!