09-15-2013, 10:50 AM
Opaworta is a word also associated with cuirasses, so a meaning of crests or horns would be unlikely and a meaning of metal boss much more probable.
This seems to support leather helmets for some of the Iliad descriptions, the author even posits that all the Greek helmets were leather (this was written when only the Dendra bronze helmet was known) :
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WLJgy...et&f=false
The description of the helmet of Odysseus is definite enough, it is a leather helmet reinforced by boars tusks. This type of helmet is today noted for the boar's tusks, but this should not blind us to the fact that it was essentially a leather helmet. A contemporary type of leather helmet reinforced by bronze is therefore not unlikely.
There are many mentions of multiple-layered leather shields. Taken together with the leather helmets -including those of Diomedes and Odysseus - there is plenty of evidence in the Iliad for leather being used to make defensive equipment
This seems to support leather helmets for some of the Iliad descriptions, the author even posits that all the Greek helmets were leather (this was written when only the Dendra bronze helmet was known) :
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WLJgy...et&f=false
The description of the helmet of Odysseus is definite enough, it is a leather helmet reinforced by boars tusks. This type of helmet is today noted for the boar's tusks, but this should not blind us to the fact that it was essentially a leather helmet. A contemporary type of leather helmet reinforced by bronze is therefore not unlikely.
There are many mentions of multiple-layered leather shields. Taken together with the leather helmets -including those of Diomedes and Odysseus - there is plenty of evidence in the Iliad for leather being used to make defensive equipment
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
