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Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor - New Book
#91
I got tired of seeing my own ideas presented back to me.
 
I understand where you are coming from. I was shouted down here about the cavalry being on the same century roll as the infantry. Since my paper on academia, I’ve noticed my critics making calculations based on the cavalry being on the same roll as the infantry.
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#92
Anything published is fair game to be criticized as well as anything posted here, but please folks read what you are criticizing so harshly and be aware especially when it comes to translations and interpretations of ancient texts that there are often multiple versions of the same text. We tend to accept the version that agrees with our pov, which is natural. Kudos to Paul for acknowledging that he missed a reference to this forum. Most of us just go silent when a mistake is corrected. I really wonder how many folks here have read Scott's book.

My most recent interest in this often discussed topic began with the publication of a new test of linen armor in the book "Why Leather?" The book is free to read online and the section on leather and linen armor is quite interesting. The author does not add glue to dry linen before testing, rather he boils his linen in water saturated with glue. At the same time I noticed a reference to Greek "linen boilers" in an ancient text from 250 BC and was curious so I asked him some follow up questions and await his replies. Before calling the author an idiot, please read the section first.

Same goes for criticism of Hero Granger-Taylor's conclusions on the linen fragment she analyzed from Masada in the book "Wearing the Cloak." She clearly is a world expert and has access to other experts to discuss these topics with before this publication. She clearly states the fragment in question may not be Roman at all, it may be from a Jewish fighter who would have used what was most common at that time and place, armor of Greek Hellenistic influence. Regarding the linen fragment in question she clearly states that it appears to be "pressed or polished, and "some kind of additional material appears to have been rubbed into it." That material is still present in fact as a whitish powdery substance. No analysis is mentioned, but no doubt an analysis will be made at some point. If such an analysis has been made I am not aware it and would be grateful to know the results. She also includes two high quality pictures of the fragment and the linen does not appear to be layers. In the end she believes that this and other fragments were from pteryges, either the shoulder or waist versions.

Unless you have read he report please don't call her a fraud seeking to sell books, or just an idiot who does not know what she is talking about.

"Meanwhile, two questions for you:
*In Alexander's time we may conservatively estimate that there were over 100,000 hoplites and phalangites in Greece/Macedon. Each corselet needed many metres of linen - so millions of metres of very expensive linen needed. Where did it come from and how was it paid for ?
* Despite modern experiments, no ancient glue can be made to work successfully, as far as I know, so what was the 'glue' you claim was used ? ( Aldrete et al reckoned 'rabbit' glue, which is variously reported as being bought in an art store, or that they made it themselves )"

There is no doubt in my mind or anyone I have consulted with that providing enough linen for the numbers you refer to was certainly possible at that time. Flax production was already well established by that period from a number of well-known sources especially Egypt, which under the Ptolemies was a quasi-state run enterprise. As for how it was paid for, the Hellenistic Kingdoms were arguably the richest on Earth at the time and their economies were highly monetized.

Regarding glue, Aldrete did not use common ancient fish bladder glue, which I would have used as it has some interesting properties. When certain types of fish glue is boiled with milk it apparently becomes water proof. That does not mean rabbit or any other glue was not suitable or widely available, but I don't know what you mean by "no ancient glue can be made to work successfully." In what regards?

"The Romans did not use linen armour militarily"

Does any believe that they never used linen? There is no doubt, really no doubt at all, that Rome was highly influenced by the Etruscans to the north and the Greeks to the south and both used linen armor of some sort. Regarding the Etruscans, I again refer to "Wearing the Cloak" where Margarita Gelb in "Linen-Clad Etruscan Warriors" presents her case.

BTW add Gelb and Granger-Taylor to the long list of experts who believe the Greeks used linen armor.
Joe Balmos
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#93
Rocktupac/Scott wrote:
"I suspect that even if we uncovered a completely intact glued-together set of linen armor many would still argue until they're blue in the face that they don't exist."


That jibe is ill-placed, for if there is one thing I and others have emphasised, it is that we must go on whatever evidence we have to date, meagre as that is, as opposed to your approach, which is to put blind faith in a surmise for which there is NO evidence WHATEVER, namely that the Tube-and-Yoke corselet worn by Graeco /Macedonian hoplites over a period of 300 years aprox ( say 550 BC to 250 BC - certainly not the "1,000 years" claimed by your project.) was made of multiple layers of glued linen. One could surmise and suggest anything - felt, wool, paper - 'test' it the way you did and  come up with similar results no doubt. LOL!
 
I have pointed out above that one can't tell from iconography - paintings, statues etc - what something is made of. For that we must rely on archaeology ( though that has its weaknesses as well, notably that some materials have a poor survival rate in the record), and to a lesser extent literature, and the best way is to take a holistic approach, as I have referred to above.

Ironically, if an intact glued linen corselet should surface, most would accept that evidence, not reject it in favour of "blind faith", which is the premise of your book.

One of my objections to your work is that if it were to become widely accepted, (which it won't, at least among scholars knowledgeable in the subject) it would set back the study of Graeco/Macedonian armour 40 years, to the 1970's!!
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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#94
Quote:...namely that the Tube-and-Yoke corselet worn by Graeco /Macedonian hoplites over a period of 300 years aprox ( say 550 BC to 250 BC - certainly not the "1,000 years" claimed by your project.) was made of multiple layers of glued linen
I don't have a problem using the term "linothorax" to denote all forms of Greek linen armour (not just the tube and yoke style). If this definition is used then it was in use for more than a thousand years. We have physical examples and a textual reference dating to the end of the Bronze Age. If you narrow the definition to only include the tube and yoke style then 300-400 years is about right.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#95
Creon 01 wrote:
“ Kudos to Paul  for acknowledging that he missed a reference to this forum. Most of us just go silent when a mistake is corrected. I really wonder how many folks here have read Scott's book.”

 
A single simple reference buried in an endnote is hardly an appropriate acknowledgement for the considerable debt the Andrete et al book owed to this forum! No wonder most people miss it.
The ‘folks’ you refer to are self-evidently those who post here, and the answer would almost certainly be “all of them”! ( for obvious reasons).

Creon 01 wrote:

“.... a new test of linen armor in the book "Why Leather?" The book is free to read online and the section on leather and linen armor is quite interesting. .......Before calling the author an idiot, please read the section first.”

The norm on this forum is to give sufficient details of a source so that it can be easily found. What you provide is insufficient to find your reference, even with the use of search engines. Frustrating.
Your implication that I, or others, would ‘name call’ someone an idiot is strongly resented. Aside from being discourteous, it is directly against the rules of this forum.
You will find that whilst I may criticise a person’s arguments or P.O.V, I never ‘name call’ or make personal attacks, express or implied, because such behaviour can quickly lead to ‘flaming’ – not pleasant for other readers, and certainly not what we look for in a forum.

Creon01 wrote:
Same goes for criticism of Hero Granger-Taylor's conclusions on the linen fragment she analyzed from Masada in the book "Wearing the Cloak." She clearly is a world expert and has access to other experts to discuss these topics with before this publication.”

I have no quarrel with Hero Granger’s conclusions which are reasonable. Whether she is a ‘world expert’ on the subject of Greek/Macedonian armour is another matter – some of her remarks are incorrect. This is another example of the fallacious argument of ‘appeal to authority’ – accepting a view uncritically because of a person’s assumed respectability in a field, often unrelated to their own. Granger-Taylor’s field is ‘textiles’, not armour.
The fragments of thick linen are just 7 cm in size, and thus impossible to determine what they came from. There are obviously a number of possibilities. She surmises – purely from the thickness – that it is possible these are from ‘pteryges’ and notes correctly in passing that in the 1 C AD, pteryges were fastened to a soft ‘arming doublet’/subarmalis, worn beneath armour.

She concludes:
An alternative explanation might be that there had been several items of armour in the bathhouse, and that among them there may [my emphasis] have been, as already suggested above, one or more items principally of linen, perhaps even a linen corselet.”    [ Most improbable in the 1C AD, over 300 years after the Tube-and-Yoke corselet went out of general use]
 
She is not foolish enough to suggest what such a small remnant might have come from, merely one possibility.
And again, I resent your implication that I would call her names.
 
For the sake of debate, let us assume these fragments are from a Roman ‘sub-armalis’ or similar Jewish equipment, that is hardly evidence of what Greek/Macedonian armour that disappeared around 300 years earlier was like! Further, as I am sure others will have noticed, it is ‘one-ply’ thick, not layers and certainly not glued. Moreover we already know linen armour was used in the Middle East. Seems you’ve scored a bit of an ‘own goal’......
 
Simply stating that Egypt grew a lot of flax, or that Hellenistic kingdoms were rich are mere obvious generalisations and do not answer my questions. Even in Egypt, bleached white linen – the material claimed for Tube-and-Yoke corselet manufacture, was restricted to the clothes of nobles and priests.
Linen, not least because it is complex and difficult to produce, was always an expensive luxury item throughout the Mediterranean world and Middle-East. For example, Thucydides records how the Athenians gave up “luxurious” linen clothing and reverted to woollen, save for the richest women, because linen became  too expensive just before the Peloponnesian war. If it was too expensive for the rich to wear linen clothes, given the quantities needed to make layered Tube-and-Yoke corselets, linen would be totally out of the question for mass production of armour. Indeed, it may be significant that linen armour is generally described as being worn by Kings and high nobles in our sources.
 
Creon01 wrote:
“I don't know what you mean by "no ancient glue can be made to work successfully." In what regards?”
 
The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used animal and fish based glues. These are essentially collagen [gelatine] based. All, especially fish glues, are vulnerable to humidity and moisture. I would therefore be somewhat sceptical of your claim that a fish glue mixed with milk would be ‘waterproof’. Modern fish and animal glues can be made water resistant [but not waterproof] by the addition of aluminium sulphate [Alum], which was known in ancient Greece, but not so far as I am aware used in glue-making. They also go brittle with time, and undergo changes due to differentials in Ph value, leading to de-lamination. Aldrete et al claim they 'water-proofed' their corselets with Beeswax. If hoplites did this, or Alexander's army, where did they continually get a sufficient supply of beeswax ( which needs daily renewing)?
 
Creon01 wrote:
“Does any believe that they never used linen? There is no doubt, really no doubt at all, that Rome was highly influenced by the Etruscans to the north and the Greeks to the south and both used linen armor of some sort. Regarding the Etruscans, I again refer to "Wearing the Cloak" where Margarita Gelb in "Linen-Clad Etruscan Warriors" presents her case.”
 
This is not evidence, but simply misleading speculation. In historical times, the Romans certainly did NOT use Tube-and-Yoke corselets, let alone linen ones, and there is no evidence that they ever did. In mythological times, when Rome was under Etruscan rule, we may speculate that a few of the richest Romans may have worn Tube-and-Yoke corselets like their rulers – but there is no evidence of them wearing linen. As for Etruscan ‘linen’ armour there is one passage of Livy [IV.20.7] which refers to a linen corselet/'thorace linteo' taken as ‘spolia opima’ from  the King of nearby Veii, Tolumnius and which Augustus himself saw when he restored the temple of Jupiter. This single piece of evidence, quite a good one, is supported by iconography of an Etruscan warrior in a Tube-and-Yoke corselet which is clearly quilted. [not glued], and that’s it! No archaeological evidence, which shows various types of bronze armour including simple discs from warrior graves. Again, no evidence for glued linen 
 
Margarita Gleba [not Gelb] is another whose field is textiles, and her article is, alas, completely worthless as evidence. She briefly refers to the literary evidence for linen armour, paraphrasing Aldrete et al, and then describes Etruscan ‘linen armour’ on the assumption that all Tube-and-Yoke corselets in Etruscan iconography are linen! [ refer to my earlier remarks that iconography cannot tell us what a Tube-and-Yoke  corselet was made from.] This shows the same very poor methodology as Aldrete et al use, hardly surprising given Gleba’s glowing review of the Aldrete et al book from which it is clear she has derived some knowledge of armour. She also incorrectly states:
“...the fact that there are no composite corselets surviving in  archaeological context indicates they were made of perishable materials.”
In fact there are hundreds of such corselets, recognisable from their metal fittings, found amidst organic fragments identified as leather from Macedonia,Thrace, and Scythia some of which were probably exported from Greece ( along with helmets,) and at least one fully intact composite cavalry corselet found in the tomb of a Thracian Prince, which is leather covered in scales. The ‘perishable material’ found is invariably leather, and no linen examples have ever been found.
 
Creon 01 wrote:
BTW add Gelb and Granger-Taylor to the long list of experts who believe the Greeks used linen armor.”
...And yet again you resort the logical fallacy of the ‘argument from authority.’ Granger-Taylor and Gelba are ‘experts’ in the field of ancient clothing textiles, not armour, and it is clear that they rely entirely on the mistaken ideas of the Aldrete et al book for any knowledge of armour  - they are not experts in the field. Would you describe an ‘expert’ on motor cars as an expert on horse carriages?


Dan Howard wrote:
"
Quote: Wrote:...namely that the Tube-and-Yoke corselet worn by Graeco /Macedonian hoplites over a period of 300 years aprox ( say 550 BC to 250 BC - certainly not the "1,000 years" claimed by your project.) was made of multiple layers of glued linen


I don't have a problem using the term "linothorax" to denote all forms of Greek linen armour (not just the tube and yoke style). If this definition is used then it was in use for more than a thousand years. We have physical examples and a textual reference dating to the end of the Bronze Age. If you narrow the definition to only include the tube and yoke style then 300-400 years is about right."


As the quoted statement says, I was referring to the Tube-and-Yoke corselet worn by Greek and Macedonian troops. That, after all, is the subject of the book under discussion. Apart from which, having seen drawings of the bronze age specimen, one could not in all honesty positively identify it as coming from armour..... [see attachment]


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"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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#96
Quote:It gives us two independent sources suggesting that linen armour was made of a few layers of a thick material rather than a dozen or more layers of regular cloth. We also have the Dura greave liner telling us that twined linen was used in a martial context. Combining these two data points gives us a probable method of construction. There seems to be more evidence for this proposed reconstruction during the time in question than any other alternative suggestion.

There is also king Amasis' armour. Pliny said it was made of linen strands consisting of 365 threads and Herodotus said 360 threads. The exact number doesn't matter; what matters is that cords this thick are used in twined cloth, not woven cloth. So we have more data pointing to twined linen armour.

I've just learnt that this kind of cloth can be made waterproof by twining with a pile. You don't need a waterproof coating.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#97
What do you mean a pile Dan?
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
[Image: -side-1.gif]
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#98
(09-04-2016, 12:05 PM)Dan Howard Wrote: There is also king Amasis' armour. 

I've just learnt that this kind of cloth can be made waterproof by twining with a pile. You don't need a waterproof coating.

The question with the Amasis armor for me has always been was it considered amazing because it was a super high quality linen armor and the Greek examples were less so, or was it amazing because linen was too precious and difficult to work to find used throughout greece.  Egypt was a major linen source, but the best linen came from Colchis.  I have always wondered exactly what was going on with the Jason story because the panoply of the Neo-hittites and Uratians is in many ways like the early hoplites.

By pile i asssume you mean something like untwisted yarn?  I wonder if it is truly water proof as opposed to water resistant and proof against splash wetting rather than submersion.  Link to a ref if you can.

Do we have any Greek sail fragments? Love to know how they were woven.
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#99
I mislike this new forum format. I can't quote a single post without ending up with half of the thread. There doesn't seem to be a way to revert back to BBCode either.

Quote:What do you mean a pile Dan?
The tufted part of a carpet is called a pile.

Quote:By pile i asssume you mean something like untwisted yarn? I wonder if it is truly water proof as opposed to water resistant and proof against splash wetting rather than submersion. Link to a ref if you can.
I don't have a reference. I heard it from someone who specialises in historical textiles. I doubt it is completely waterproof because linen absorbs moisture. If the pile is in contact with water for long enough, it will wick up the threads.

For those who are unfamiliar with many of the terms used here, this site is a good summary of the various ways of making textiles.
https://rjohnhowe.wordpress.com/2010/03/...hy-part-1/



Edit: here is a reference. The text says that a pile can render a material "water resistant", "not waterproof".
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=P6u...ce&f=false
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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King Amasis’ linen ‘armour’
 
Dan Howard wrote:
There is also king Amasis' armour. Pliny said it was made of linen strands consisting of 365 threads and Herodotus said 360 threads. The exact number doesn't matter; what matters is that cords this thick are used in twined cloth, not woven cloth. So we have more data pointing to twined linen armour.”
 
Paul Bardunias wrote:
The question with the Amasis armor for me has always been was it considered amazing because it was a super high quality linen armor and the Greek examples were less so, or was it amazing because linen was too precious and difficult to work to find used throughout Greece.  Egypt was a major linen source, but the best linen came from Colchis.”

There seems to be some misunderstanding and confusion regarding King Amasis’ gifts, and the use of the word ‘thoraka’. The word can refer to body armour made of any material, but it also has a generic meaning of ‘body protector’ or even just ‘body covering’ e.g. a garment [see LSJ]. Thus, as Paul Bardunias has alluded to earlier, in mythological and archaic times, animal pelts used as protection were ‘thoraka’.
 
The relevant passages of different authors are produced below, for readers without access to the sources.

Herodotus II.182.1
Moreover, Amasis dedicated offerings in Hellas. He gave to Cyrene a gilt image of Athena and a painted picture of himself; to Athena of Lindus[Rhodes], two stone images and a marvellous linen body-protector/thoraka; and to Hera in Samos, two wooden statues of himself that were still standing in my time behind the doors in the great shrine.”

Herodotus III.47.2
This body-protector/thorakos had been stolen by the Samians [from the Lacedaemonians] in the year before they took the bowl; it was of linen, decked with gold and cotton embroidery, and embroidered with many figures; but what makes it worthy of wonder is that each fine thread of the body-protector/ of which the material is woven, is made up of three hundred and sixty strands, each plainly seen. It is the exact counterpart of that one which Amasis dedicated to Athena in Lindus[on Rhodes]”

Pliny Natural History XIX. II.1
Those, no doubt, will be astonished at this, who are not aware that there is preserved in the Temple of Minerva[Athena], at Lindus, in the Isle of Rhodes, the body protector/thorace of a former king of Egypt, Amasis by name, each thread employed in the texture of which is composed of three hundred and sixty-five other threads. Mucianus, who was three times consul, informs us that he saw this curiosity very recently, though there was but little then remaining of it, in consequence of the injury it had experienced at the hands of various persons who had tried to verify the fact.”

These three passages, then, describe the two fine ‘thoraka’ made of linen, which Amasis donated to two temples of Athena. This practise of donating gifts to a God or Goddess, which then became part of the ‘treasure’ held in that Goddess’ Temple was quite common. In Athens for example, the maidens wove a ‘peplos’/ full length garment for the annual lesser Panathenaic festival for Athena Polias. Every four years, at the Greater Panathenaic festival, the city’s professional  male weavers provided a much larger ‘peplos’, which was displayed as a sail from the yardarm of the Panathenaic ship, and afterward displayed as a tapestry hung in the Temple on the Acropolis.
Amasis’ gifts, by contrast, were not clothing, but Athena’s ‘body protector’/thorakos. This was NOT a conventional Tube-and-Yoke corselet, or other conventional armour, and Athena was never, so far as I know, depicted thus. Each God and Goddess had their own attributes by which they could be recognised – Zeus’ thunderbolt, Poseidon’s trident and so on. One of Athena’s attributes was her ‘body-protector/thoraka’ which consisted of the Aegis, the scaly pelt of a dragon-like monster, to which was attached the head of the Gorgon Medusa, which had the power of turning to stone those unfortunate mortals who gazed upon it. ( see attached images).
The matter is put beyond doubt by a passage in Diodorus, describing Athena’s body protector/thoraka as the Aegis.

Diodorus III.70
Athena, they say, overcoming the monster [the Aegis]partly through her intelligence and partly through her courage and bodily strength, slew it, and covering her breast with its [scaly] hide bore this about with her, both as a covering and protection for her body against later dangers, and as a memorial of her valour and of her well-merited fame.”

It is the Aegis that was reproduced in woven linen then [contra Dan’s twined linen], richly decorated with gold thread and cotton    ( cotton even more valuable than linen)that  Amasis donated. This was particularly fine linen (thread count 360 or 365 ), and as Paul B. Suggested “...considered amazing because it was a super high quality linen”. Pliny also describes how complex and difficult it was to process, so he was right on both counts!

I commented in a previous post on just how costly and expensive linen was, and certainly too expensive for any save super-rich Kings and nobles to wear linen armour, which like Dan, I believe to have been quilted, for that is what all our evidence points to, and this is quite likely one of the factors that influenced Alexander to wear a fine captured Persian example, probably belonging to Darieus, or one of his Friends/Relations. Pliny too has some relevant comments on just how valuable the best linens were ( he reckons there were over 20 odd varieties).

Pliny Natural History XIX.4-6
The next rank is accorded to the tissue known as "byssus," an article which is held in the very highest estimation by females, and is produced in the vicinity of Elis, in Achaia. I find it stated by some writers that a scruple [1.14 grams] of this sold formerly at four denarii, the same rate, in fact, as gold.”...... (my emphasis - it was worth its weight in gold, literally)

...... “Linen, too, was highly valued as early as the Trojan war; for why else should it not have figured as much in battles as it did in shipwrecks? Thus Homer, we find, bears witness that there were but few among the warriors of those days who fought with cuirasses made of linen;”

On grounds of expense alone, then, we may rule out general use of multiple layers of glued linen as being the material of the typical Greek/Macedonian Tube-and-Yoke corselet.

Like Dan, I would like to add my protests and frustrations at trying to post in this current format.....it always takes a half dozen attempts to get a post right, even drafting in 'Word', because the format always 'stuffs up'......



 


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"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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Quote:There seems to be some misunderstanding and confusion regarding King Amasis’ gifts, and the use of the word ‘thoraka’. The word can refer to body armour made of any material, but it also has a generic meaning of ‘body protector’ or even just ‘body covering’ e.g. a garment [see LSJ]. Thus, as Paul Bardunias has alluded to earlier, in mythological and archaic times, animal pelts used as protection were ‘thoraka’.

Armour is just as likely an interpretation as anything else. I agree that it was unusual and would have been very expensive. I maintain that cloth made from cords this thick is more likely to have been twined rather than woven. It has nothing to do with Greek armour but we still need to know how eastern linen armour was made and the Amasis passages contribute to the body of evidence.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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One of my problems with this whole discussion is that even if we accept that the ancient Greeks had both linen and leather armor, it tells us nothing about if either or both were the Tube and Yokes we see on vases.  The Spolas reference could easily be satisfied by a garment cut like the leopard skin in the image below (it hangs from the shoulders), while the other two images can surely satisfy the term linothorax (note how thick that garment is over his shoulder in the last pic).

Now I believe that the T-Y was probably made of leather and twinned linen (the lack of leather on the face of the extant aspides, while multiple layers of linen, the top one twinned has been found, is good evidence to me that the protectiveness of twinned linen was known and made use of).  But I also know that I am making a leap in connecting the the cut of a garment to references of its base material.


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The Alexander mosaic shows him wearing a tube and yoke armour. Is it one of his Greek cuirasses or is it the linen one he got as Persian war booty? If it is war booty then the Persians must have worn tube and yoke armour as well and we therefore have evidence of at least one linen cuirass made in the tube and yoke style.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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Paul Bardunias wrote:
"The Spolas reference could easily be satisfied by a garment cut like the leopard skin in the image below (it hangs from the shoulders), while the other two images can surely satisfy the term linothorax (note how thick that garment is over his shoulder in the last pic)."

The Kings charioteer on the Alexander mosaic wears what is clearly a red Tube-and-Yoke corslet, with a diamond pattern that looks very like quilting. His cavalry escort seem to wear plain red 'spolades'/Tube-and-Yoke corselets......

The lexicon entries are pretty clear....




Julius Pollux: ". "Spolas de thorax ek dermatos, kata tous omous ephaptomenos, hos Xenophon ephe "kai spolas anti thorakos" is about as clear as we could hope for."

........and Hesychios clarifies even further.....

spolas: khitoniskos bathus skutinos, ho bursinos thorax

"little thick leathern(skutinos) chiton, the leathern (bursinos) thorax"

the 'spolas' is a leather 'thorax'/body armour, like a chiton of  thick leather[skutinos]...

Don't forget 'linothorax' was NOT a classical term.  Wink
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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(09-06-2016, 06:34 AM)Paullus Scipio Wrote: Julius Pollux: ". "Spolas de thorax ek dermatos, kata tous omous ephaptomenos, hos Xenophon ephe "kai spolas anti thorakos" is about as clear as we could hope for."

........and Hesychios clarifies even further.....

spolas: khitoniskos bathus skutinos, ho bursinos thorax

"little thick leathern(skutinos) chiton, the leathern (bursinos) thorax"

the 'spolas' is a leather 'thorax'/body armour, like a chiton of  thick leather[skutinos]...

Don't forget 'linothorax' was NOT a classical term.  Wink

I imagine the 'thorax conundrum' is very similar to the 'lorica conundrum'? Generic use of words in unclear sources, modern invented terminology? Wink
Robert Vermaat
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