Musculata Images

[Alexand96]

What about early ones from the first century AD.

Are there any other sources outside of Pompeii for this time period?

[Sulla]

Seems like there are a few but its been a while since I was looking into it.

[M.VAL.BRUTUS]

Hey,

I just wanted to thank you guys for starting this thread. I have been building an impression as a Tribune for a while now, and this a huge help.

So Thanks.

[Sulla]

Glad its coming in handy for you

[M.VAL.BRUTUS]

Yeah,

I know I'm going to be ridiculed for this by some. But, I actually have two musculata, one in brass and one in leather.

I did this because I cosistantly found conflicting evidence, and after solely wearing the metal one for a year, I realized there was no way someone could wear one and still be expected to pick something up off the ground, or mount a horse, take a trip to the latrina, without help. And it was a comfort thing, much easier to move in the leather. But regardless, I am anxious to see how this works out, the number of flexible image compared to the number of ridigid images and what the ratio is...

Should be fun.

[Sulla]

If you look close the ones that seem to show active troops like calvary and people that are not generals they tended to be very very short musculata so that you could bend over. The trimming around the bottom was also different on those being the more flexible kind. Any way nothing wrong with expermenting to see how things work in real life

[Alexand96]

I know I'm going to be ridiculed for this by some. But, I actually have two musculata, one in brass and one in leather.

No ridicule coming from us! Hey, I've seen your leather musculata and now your brass one (in avatar) and they both look beautiful (even if I'm not convinced that they were made of leather).

And besides, if I may sidetrack for just a bit from our image-gathering activities, I do believe experimental archaeology/historical recreation is a valid exercise in helping us understand the past. If the brass musculata is very difficult to wear, whereas a leather one is much more comfortable, I by no means believe this proves that the Romans wore leather musculata, but it presents us with valuable information just the same.

If the most often portrayed (at least on the emperors) anatomical-style musculata, made from metal, was extremely immobile and uncomfortable to wear, and at this point in time we only have archaeological evidence for metal musculata (I believe there is at least one Roman musculata found on a shipwreck featured in D'Amato's Arms and Armour of the Imperial Roman Soldier)...I would venture to guess that the armor was much more seldom seen on the battlefield than artistic depictions would have us believe. Unless of course we do someday drag a nicely preserved anatomical-style leather musculata out of some bog or desert someday.

If you look close the ones that seem to show active troops like calvary and people that are not generals they tended to be very very short musculata so that you could bend over.

Sulla, I've noticed this short-style of musculata depicted almost as often as the anatomical-style in Roman art, and although I still believe that this would have been made out of metal (due to lack of archaeological evidence to suggest otherwise), I would venture to bet that this style of musculata would be more prominently featured on the ancient battlefield, for practicality's sake.

Of course these are opinions, and I could be entirely wrong. :-)

It's still great to have access to all of these great images at one's fingertips!

[Sulla]

Thats what I ment that if you want a metal musculata and want to be able to bend and move it has to be short. That is why we see different kinds of musculata on the statues.

[Dan Howard]

Real musculatas are not anatomically correct. The navel on the armour is significantly higher than the navel on a human. The bottom of most breastplates is actually pretty close to navel level. If your metal breastplate was designed like the historical ones you'd have no problem bending over. If your leather one was flexible enough to actually let you bend over then it has no practical purpose on the battlefield anyway since it is too thin to stop an arrow or weapon point. This is the main point that D'Amato constantly fails to understand. It is physically impossible for leather armour to flex the way he seems to think.

[Alexand96]

Real musculatas are not anatomically correct. The navel on the armour is significantly higher than the navel on a human. The bottom of most breastplates is actually pretty close to navel level. If your metal breastplate was designed like the historical ones you'd have no problem bending over.

Hmmm, quite interesting. I haven't noticed this before now, but I do see what you are talking about.

It is physically impossible for leather armour to flex the way he seems to think.

This is something that bothers me. I can't possibly imagine a material that can both bend the way the statues do, and simultaneously hold the detailed muscular form that we see (other than stone). This leads me to believe that both the bends that we see in on statuary musculata, as well as the lack of certain more practical aspects of the musculata (such as hinges and so on) are the way they are for artistic convention.

Now, despite the fact that just making this reference in a debate about real evidence that we have from ancient Rome may completely discredit everything I say in regards to this issue, I will bring it up anyway - HBOs Rome. In the show, all of the musculata are leather. Now before I even knew of this whole debate about the existence of the leather musculata, I did not pay much attention to them. They looked decent...but that was the full extent of the attention that I paid them. Having gone back and re-watched the shows, in which many different examples are shown, I noticed something interesting - the leather musculatas do hold their muscular form quite well, but they don't bend. And yes, yes, I know that these are modern recreations made by artisans who probably have neither care nor clue as to how the ancients would have done them. But still, there's only so much the artist/artisan can affect a medium such as leather, no? The only worry I have with bringing this "example" up is if someone informs me that HBO really made them out of plastic or rubber to keep costs down haha.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Real musculatas are not anatomically correct. The navel on the armour is significantly higher than the navel on a human. The bottom of most breastplates is actually pretty close to navel level. If your metal breastplate was designed like the historical ones you'd have no problem bending over.

Hmmm, quite interesting. I haven't noticed this before now, but I do see what you are talking about.

It is physically impossible for leather armour to flex the way he seems to think.

This is something that bothers me. I can't possibly imagine a material that can both bend the way the statues do, and simultaneously hold the detailed muscular form that we see (other than stone). This leads me to believe that both the bends that we see in on statuary musculata, as well as the lack of certain more practical aspects of the musculata (such as hinges and so on) are the way they are for artistic convention.

Now, despite the fact that just making this reference in a debate about real evidence that we have from ancient Rome may completely discredit everything I say in regards to this issue, I will bring it up anyway - HBOs Rome. In the show, all of the musculata are leather. Now before I even knew of this whole debate about the existence of the leather musculata, I did not pay much attention to them. They looked decent...but that was the full extent of the attention that I paid them. Having gone back and re-watched the shows, in which many different examples are shown, I noticed something interesting - the leather musculatas do hold their muscular form quite well, but they don't bend. And yes, yes, I know that these are modern recreations made by artisans who probably have neither care nor clue as to how the ancients would have done them. But still, there's only so much the artist/artisan can affect a medium such as leather, no? The only worry I have with bringing this "example" up is if someone informs me that HBO really made them out of plastic or rubber to keep costs down haha.

Some leathers can be quite thick and retain some flexibility. I have a number of belts of various thicknesses, depending on the type of trouser I am wearing depends on the thickness of the belt i.e. when wearing jeans I wear quite a wide, thick belt that is very tough butl flexible enough to go around my waist and will last years before needing replacing (my last Jean's belt finally broke about 5 years ago after 17 years of service, and I wear jeans daily!).

I have handled cuirasses made for TV and film productions that have been made out of leather, the majority featured in 1950's/60's 'Sword & Sandal' epics. Not only do they look good, they were in turn stiff around the chest but flexible around the arms and waist area where they were cut into the classic strip petruges. I think the cuirasses in 'Gladiator' featuring Russel Crow were also made out of leather.

Whether the muscle cuirasses seen on monumental works and in art were made from leather is unknown, but we can presume that the ones that were coloured blue were probably made from iron.

I would not discount a proportion of cuirasses made out of leather on the basis of there is no evidence either for or against at this moment in time.

[Alexand96]

I have handled cuirasses made for TV and film productions that have been made out of leather, the majority featured in 1950's/60's 'Sword & Sandal' epics. Not only do they look good, they were in turn stiff around the chest but flexible around the arms and waist area where they were cut into the classic strip petruges.

I would not discount a proportion of cuirasses made out of leather on the basis of there is no evidence either for or against at this moment in time.

This thread keeps getting more interesting with each new post! Now, not to hijack this thread at all, because Sulla was the first to start it as a place to collect images that we have of musculata...but would anyone care to post pictures of musculata recreations, if they have any? Perhaps to serve as a contrast to what is depicted on monuments and in art? If we'd like to keep the images strictly historical, please just ignore me and move along with more of the historical images that we've been collecting.

[Magnus]

Romans were fashionable. Can someone explain to me, why an officer who makes really good money, would waste it on a plain looking, dark brown leather musculata? I can pretty confidently say that they wouldn't.

Paint it then? Ok...guess what happens to paint on a flexible surface, especially milk or casein? It cracks...then it flakes off. So now you have a high ranking officer looking like a piece of crap. Not exactly inspiring to the troops. So you can't have the leather flexing like it does and being painted. Not to mention the creases in the actual leather (if it will flex once it's been molded) will ruin the smooth finish on it.

Sorry guys, but we've been over this, and over this. There is simply nothing solid to lend weight to the leather musculata theory, especially if you look at it from all angles. Statuary alone isn't going to cut it either. If you look at the painted images of musculata, they are all light colours....white, yellow...etc.

Can you imagine what someone 2,000 years from now would think of our civilization if they took our "art" as being culturally accurate???

[Nathan Ross]

Can you imagine what someone 2,000 years from now would think of our civilization if they took our "art" as being culturally accurate???

I'm sure they'd get the right idea...

mile:

[Alexand96]

Sorry guys, but we've been over this, and over this.

Hey Magnus, just in case you thought I was bringing up the posting of recreated musculata just as way to search for evidence of leather...no worries. I'm solidly in your camp on this one, and I think the points you bring up are just a few of the reasons why I think leather would not have been practical of desired in the Roman world.

I think we have it highly ingrained in our modern minds that leather is not only fashionable, but in many cases a luxury: think of Italian leather shoes, designer leather jackets and so on. In the ancient world, as far as I can tell, leather was usually used for its inherent qualities of toughness and was rather abundant. For some reason, I think its difficult for us to imagine that ALL of the depictions we see of emperors, generals and officers wearing extremely detailed, most likely heavy and uncomfortable plate armour. But Rome was a martial culture to the extreme, with no inhibition toward displays of wealth. They were hard, rich men, and in their finest moments (having their likeness transcribed onto statue), I believe they wanted to be shown as rich and as fierce as possible. I really believe the modern mindset, and the way we see things plays into this argument.