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In the osprey book byzantine armies 836-1118 it showed a photo of a relief on a box that showed armenian infantry men in what looked suspicously like a Lorica Laminata it was dated to the Tenth century. Hmmm I wonder if those men were a revival of the old legionarie? the way the klibanophoros was a revival (According to the book) of the cataphract. Also does anyone recall the fragment of statuary which shows the triad of palmyran gods in roman military dress? Perhaps the laminata survived longer than it was thought to.
What does everyone else think?
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Perhaps artists liked to depict classical fashions in their illustrations.
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This didn't look much like any classical byzantine art, but you might have a point, but these guys were contemorary (According to the book). Correct if I'm wrong but it always seemed to me that the byzantines prefered muscle cuirasses in their classical art
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I think I know the image you're talking about. If I'm not mistaken it's a drawing of a carving from an ivory casket of 10th c. Armenian infantrymen. It actually doesn't depict laminated armor. If you look at other surviving illustrations of Byzantine skutatoi from that period you'll see that they are often shown with a wide belt and that strange bra thing on their upper chest, often with no detail to suggest the material of the armor beneath. Without color or other details to suggest material, it just looks like a bunch of horizontal lines. I think the original carving was probably somewhat stylized, or maybe it just doesn't translate well as a drawing.
Skutatoi probably were equipped with some form of armor at that time, what evidence there is suggests lamellar or mail, or possibly some kind of padded armor.
Gregg
