07-21-2015, 10:01 AM
A very interesting event, and it was great to meet some of you too - Mike Bishop, Graham Sumner, John Conyard, Michael (Renatus) and Georgios (Macedon). My apologies if I failed to locate others!
I wasn't taking notes, but a few of the points raised during the talks stuck with me. In particular, I thought the following might rate a bit of discussion here:
Dr Mike Burns, in the q&a at the end of his paper The South Italic cuirass from the 6th to 3rd centuries BC, mentioned that the familiar 'square' Roman cardiophylax was basically invented by Peter Connelly! He said that Peter had admitted there was no real evidence for it. When asked for his view, Dr Burns turned to a slide showing a late Italic muscled breastplate - 'I think it looked like that', he said.
Guy Stiebel's paper Also he armed him with a coat of mail’: the armour in Roman Judaea was full of intriguing stuff. A 'complete Roman soldier' found in the breach of the wall at Gamla, for example, dated to AD67. The man had a Coolus helmet (browguard and cheekguard found), a pugio (handle found) and a lorica segmentata with sliding rivet backplates. According to his shield plate, his name was Magius, of the century of Gallus, Legio V Macedonica. The only example of a named Roman soldier known from archaeology?
Guy also showed a graffito (found, I think in a cave near Hebron) of a 'Jewish rebel fighter' probably from the Bar Kokhba revolt, dressed in a high-necked coat or tunic with a criss-cross design (scale? padding?) and armed with a long spear and small round shield. Dr Stiebel pointed out the man's 'punk' hairstyle...
Another thing I never knew - the Italic G helmet from Hebron was found with a large amount of mail inside the bowl, apparently as storage. Ideas of coifs spring to mind, but probably should not be entertained...
There was also, shown very briefly, a Roman shoulder guard - a rounded half-circle, as I recall. I'd certainly never seen that before!
Christian Miks' The rise and development of segmented helmets in the later Roman to early Byzantine army was the last paper, and I could have done with being more attentive, as there was some interesting stuff here too.
I got the impression (although I could be wrong) that Dr Miks was proposing a 6th century date for the Deir el Medineh helmet, based on the similarity to the recent finds from Novae dated c.580 (as I recall...) He further suggests that the helmets on the Arch of Galerius, often considered to resemble the D-el-M, look far more like later lamellar helmets (Avar, perhaps?), and showed a number of slides that did appear very convincing in this regard...
:-)
I wasn't taking notes, but a few of the points raised during the talks stuck with me. In particular, I thought the following might rate a bit of discussion here:
Dr Mike Burns, in the q&a at the end of his paper The South Italic cuirass from the 6th to 3rd centuries BC, mentioned that the familiar 'square' Roman cardiophylax was basically invented by Peter Connelly! He said that Peter had admitted there was no real evidence for it. When asked for his view, Dr Burns turned to a slide showing a late Italic muscled breastplate - 'I think it looked like that', he said.
Guy Stiebel's paper Also he armed him with a coat of mail’: the armour in Roman Judaea was full of intriguing stuff. A 'complete Roman soldier' found in the breach of the wall at Gamla, for example, dated to AD67. The man had a Coolus helmet (browguard and cheekguard found), a pugio (handle found) and a lorica segmentata with sliding rivet backplates. According to his shield plate, his name was Magius, of the century of Gallus, Legio V Macedonica. The only example of a named Roman soldier known from archaeology?
Guy also showed a graffito (found, I think in a cave near Hebron) of a 'Jewish rebel fighter' probably from the Bar Kokhba revolt, dressed in a high-necked coat or tunic with a criss-cross design (scale? padding?) and armed with a long spear and small round shield. Dr Stiebel pointed out the man's 'punk' hairstyle...
Another thing I never knew - the Italic G helmet from Hebron was found with a large amount of mail inside the bowl, apparently as storage. Ideas of coifs spring to mind, but probably should not be entertained...
There was also, shown very briefly, a Roman shoulder guard - a rounded half-circle, as I recall. I'd certainly never seen that before!
Christian Miks' The rise and development of segmented helmets in the later Roman to early Byzantine army was the last paper, and I could have done with being more attentive, as there was some interesting stuff here too.
I got the impression (although I could be wrong) that Dr Miks was proposing a 6th century date for the Deir el Medineh helmet, based on the similarity to the recent finds from Novae dated c.580 (as I recall...) He further suggests that the helmets on the Arch of Galerius, often considered to resemble the D-el-M, look far more like later lamellar helmets (Avar, perhaps?), and showed a number of slides that did appear very convincing in this regard...
:-)
Nathan Ross
