A \'new\' look at the linothorax

[Dan Howard]

Anyway, they're using supposed "ancient glue methods" in their construction. I thought the current consensus is that there is no convincing proof that the ancient Greeks had any such glues as we understand them, and therefore likely used either layered/quilted linens or tawed leather? Please correct if I am wrong. :?

There is nothing at all to support the existence of a glued linothorax. They can't even produce a text that mentions both glue and linen armour in the same book.

[Alexand96]

Thank you, Dan, for confirming my suspicions.

[Dan Howard]

Another way to build an argument for their theory is to find a similar construction from another culture or time period. We have three thousand years of textile armours from all over the world. Cite one example where glue has been used in its assembly.

[Graham Sumner]

Are you going to contact them Dan? They are supposed to be producing a publication with their findings.

Graham.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Already published in the EXAR 2011 yearbook.
http://www.pfahlbauten.de/shop/product_i...-2011.html

[Graham Sumner]

Thanks Christian. Have you read that?

However I did mean the book they refer to on their website:

"In March of 2013, a book co-authored by Gregory S. Aldrete, Scott Bartell and Alicia Aldrete, Ancient Linen Body Armor: Unraveling the Linothroax Mystery, is scheduled to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press which will contain a detailed account of our research, reconstructions, and testing."

Graham.

[Dan Howard]

Are you going to contact them Dan? They are supposed to be producing a publication with their findings.

Scott has posted in previous linothorax threads. Judging by his comments I doubt he would be receptive of anything I would say. Nobody likes to believe that they have wasted years of work. FWIW based on what I've read so far their research has three fundamental problems.

1. Most of their textual citations are irrelevant because they discuss other cultures using linen armour, not Greeks. A lot of people here believe that the classical tube-and-yoke Greek armour that Aldrete's team was trying to reproduce was more likely made of hide, not linen.

2. They rely on an outdated hypothesis by Connolly suggesting that glue was used in the construction of Greek linen armour and don't even try to build a case supporting this idea.

3. Their exploration of quilted armour was too superficial to get a useful comparison between glued and quilted armour. If they based their quilted test piece on extant examples of textile armour they would likely find a negligible difference in protective capacity IMO. Proper quilted textile armour provides far better protection than many assume. But it can be varied a lot by adjusting the quilting and changing the number of layers. A flexible defence can be made stiff as a board by using tighter rows of stitching.


One could also argue that they have overbuilt their reconstruction since their armour appears to be proof against steel weapons. Pausanias wrote that linen armour is good for hunting but not so good in battle because:

"they let the iron pass through if the blow is a violent one."

There is also the Mallian arrow that punched through Alexander's corselet (assuming he was wearing linen armour at the time).

The armours described by Pausanias and worn by Alexander were likely lighter than Aldrete's construction, but this doesn't mean that other textile armours couldn't be heavier and more resistant to weapons. However, they first must build a case supporting this heavier construction using the available evidence. Otherwise an accurate reconstruction should not be proof against arrows.

[hoplite14gr]

I support "no glue" opinion after my experinces in the last 4 years. And I have worn many reconstructed armors. The question I aks lately is would you go to a blade fight with waht you have reonstucted?


Dan you are right we do not know what armor Alexander was wearing - not even if ti was a catapult arrow.

Pausanias had no military back ground and he might just well repeat somone's misteken opinin.

Kind regards

[caiusbeerquitius]

Thanks Christian. Have you read that?

Yes, I did. In regard of the debate here, thus in regard of source search, source criticism, and method not really convincing. I think the author knows that, though, but wants to justify his work. It is never nice to have invested a lot of time into something just to then find out it was (perhaps) in vain. In regard of experimental archaeology I´d say the results still have some value. They show what could have been (possible), just as most dynamic experiments do.

[Dan Howard]

Don't forget that, pound for pound, bronze provides the best protection of all the materials available to Greek armourers. In order for linen to provide similar resistance to weapons it would need to be a lot heavier than a bronze cuirass. We are told that an arrow punched through Alexander's armour during the Mallian attack but there is no way to know what type of armour he was wearing. Linen (or leather) is more likely than bronze IMO because it is more vulnerable to weapons, but a very heavy bow at a close enough range would be able to compromise most body armour.

[Nikanor]

In most if not all cases, a linothorax should had been a metal-linen, metal-leather composite armour. But quilting does not fit easily. The linothorax outlook was more depenent on its trouble with rain water. The mere fact that wet linen would double its weight meant that linen would need to be covered with something to make it waterproof. The obvious solutions would be
1) a cover with a thin layer of bronze (easily done with bronze scales or plates or even 2 thin body plates)
2) with a thin layer of leather - but one does not need to quilt it, too much work for no value added
3) with a glue-like or a lime-based waterproof substance applied to the outer first layer.

In the 3rd case such an application would aim at being waterproof. Gluing the whole pack of 15-20 layers would make it more bulky, harder maybe but certainly more brittle thus offering on total less perfomance than a simply stitched one.
In the 2nd case, a thin layer of leather would make no sense since it could be torn even during exercise thus in need of repair (not troublesome but would look ugly), thus it is reasonable to imagine subtracting 3-4 layers of linen to put (for comparable weight) a decent-thickness leather outer layer. Thence should we talk of leather armour backed up by linen for extra-protection/comfort?
In the 1st case, it is mostly the scales that make sense: their shape permits increased protection even for relatively (up to a limit) reduced thicknesses. Extremely thin plates would bend easily disfiguring the out-look of the armor (let alone being a potential danger being pushed in by the imbedding spear/sword). Thus such as with leather a thicker layer would be applied so should we talk of bronze armor backed with leather layers?

In our speech, linothorax would be the type of composite thorax whose main protection element would be the linen layers rather than the metal or leather on it. This would be meant either as a way to reduce costs and dependence on imported metals or increasing comfort or both.

Said this the quilting may enter in picture only in the case where linen layers were to be filled with something. This can be the case of:
A. adding a pillow-like material (eg. wool or leather pieces) for further absorption of shock.
B. adding metal pieces to form a type of garment-armour like the late Medieval brigantine

However in the first case, the linen layers themselves already offer substantial shock absorption all while the quilting does not offer any increased protection (per weight) - it rather slightly reduces protection against spear thrusts. The second case makes sense though there is big question mark - which applies to the first case too: this garment-armour would still suffer from water and as such an outer application would be necessary but this outer application does not need to be quilted too. Let us note that Medieval battle brigantines were made mostly of leather while the Linen-based ones were mostly civilian-oriented and worn to protect from... backstabbings (i.e. worn as a civilian jacket with a cape above etc.) rather than as an armour to take on military campaigns. Linen-brigantines were worn by stylish aristocrats and their guardians who hardly stayed out in the rain, guess how much go fighting... rather than being worn by the average troops. And we (think we) know that wearing armor in civilian life, unrelated to war, military excercise etc. was not at all any fashion statement.

Long story turned short? When I see quilting in ancient Greek armour artistic depictions I first think of leather-based armor with added shock absorption rather than linen-based.

[Dan Howard]

Nothing in the above post makes much sense. It is almost entirely based on speculation. You need to do a lot more research into quilted textile armours. There are many extant examples and even primary documents detailing exactly how they were made. The best textile defenses were made of multiple layers of cloth (up to thirty) with tight rows of quilting. They were used all over the world - Europe, Russia, the Middle East, South America, India, etc., etc. - for thousands of years. They were used as both standalone armours and worn layered over mail. The proper application of quilting can increase the level of protection significantly compared to just layering the cloth with no quilting. This increases the weight but not as much as simply adding more layers of cloth. The Royal Armouries demonstrated that a quilted jack layered over a mail shirt can stop a heavy English longbow at short range.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I definitely agree with Dan on the layering and quilting, which is how I make my subarmalis.
Most people who have seen it say it looks quite capable of stopping something on its own.
I am sure if someone who knew what they were doing with this were to have made it, it most likely would be a very effective armour. Mind you, mine is worn under mail/armour, and is not quite 30 layers.

[john m roberts]

Byron, have you posted a description of how you constructed your subarmalis? I need to make one for my new hamata.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Nope sorry. It leaves a lot to be desired style wise, but as for functionality it workes well.
But I have never posted any pictures of it as it would not meet visual criteria expectations