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Scholarly papers on leather Hellenic body armor?
#1
I'm finding a dearth of papers by historians on the body armor(e.g. leather tube and yoke spolas) of the ancient Greeks. Does anyone know of any? Questions have been raised about the reliability of simple discussions on these sorts of things, even on Roman Army Talk.
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#2
It would be a very short paper. There are no surviving examples and the illustrations can't help. Any paper on this subject would basically say that there are a handful of texts such as Xenophon and Pollux suggesting that the tube and yoke armour that the Greeks wore was probably called a spolas, which was said to be made of hide. That's it. If I were to write such a paper, the vast majority of the text would be explaining why the illustrations are useless for this kind of study and the rest would speculate on the construction of this armour based on examples from other cultures.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#3
Amazing that we know so little of something so often depicted.
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#4
So then what's the deal with spolas vs linothorax? One day I see people saying that the linen armor is mostly a myth, the next I hear we have very little evidence for leather cuirasses.
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#5
(02-02-2016, 10:46 PM)Rizzio Wrote: So then what's the deal with spolas vs linothorax? One day I see people saying that the linen armor is mostly a myth, the next I hear we have very little evidence for leather cuirasses.

Linen armor existed, but it was quilted linen. There's absolutely no evidence of glued linen armor.
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#6
We have a little evidence for Greek leather armour during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. I don't think there is anything at all for Greek linen armour during this time period. All of the Greek sources cited for linen armour during this time talk about other cultures wearing it, not Greeks. Most of the evidence for Greek linen armour dates to the end of the Bronze Age. I'm inclined to think that both leather and linen armour was worn during the time in question but leather seems to have been more common. Agreed with Evan, if Greeks wore linen armour then it was quilted not glued. The glued linen armour theory is complete bollocks.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#7
Its an interesting subject and one that almost certainly needs more research, if its the case though that Vegetable tanning is a later development, then most leather produced in the classical era(and this includes shoes) would be tawed rather then tanned, under these circumstances it would hardly be expected to find much in the way of extent leather since this generally wouldn't survive except in very unusual circumstances ie: secondary tanning or very dry conditions... though there is an example of a scale covered TY armour from a Tracian burial that is very complete I don't know of any papers on it, so the backing/body could be leather or linen but its almost certainly minerlised...
Ivor

"And the four bare walls stand on the seashore. a wreck a skeleton a monument of that instability and vicissitude to which all things human are subject. Not a dwelling within sight, and the farm labourer, and curious traveller, are the only persons that ever visit the scene where once so many thousands were congregated." T.Lewin 1867
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#8
Most papers on this subject use the word "leather" as a catch-all phrase for any material made from animal hide. It doesn't specifically refer to tanned leather. Usually this kind of armour was made from rawhide, not leather.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#9
What I was getting at is whatever you call it untanned leather is unlikely to survive several thousand years in the ground except under exceptional circumstances so its not suprising there is little to no artifactual evidence from the era...

Rawhide would seem logical for a TY it would also be cheap to produce in ancient Greece as it would require relatively few man hours....

Has anyone ever tried it?
Ivor

"And the four bare walls stand on the seashore. a wreck a skeleton a monument of that instability and vicissitude to which all things human are subject. Not a dwelling within sight, and the farm labourer, and curious traveller, are the only persons that ever visit the scene where once so many thousands were congregated." T.Lewin 1867
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#10
There is no published evidence of Classical or Hellenistic Greek glued linen armor such as an artifact that is clearly armor of some sort. This is odd as there are thousands of glued linen artifacts from the same period, and before, especially from Egypt in the form of mummy masks. These masks and mask fragments are surprisingly durable. As there were tens of thousands of Greek mercenaries and later settlers living in Ptolemaic Egypt one would hope that something would have turned up in those dry sandy places by now. New discoveries are still being made in Egypt, Turkey and mainland Greece as well so perhaps if, a big if, such a type of armor was in use something may turn up yet.
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#11
(02-03-2016, 07:29 AM)Dan Howard Wrote: I don't think there is anything at all for Greek linen armour during this time period. All of the Greek sources cited for linen armour during this time talk about other cultures wearing it, not Greeks. Most of the evidence for Greek linen armour dates to the end of the Bronze Age.

While linen corslets are common among other peoples (e.g. Amasis' linen breastplate in Herodotus), we do have some ancient Greek texts that refer to linothorakes worn by Greeks. For example, Alcaeus, the poet from Mytilene (Lesbos), describes a supply of armour that includes thorrakes te neo lino (corslets of new linen) in fr. 140 Voigt. That armour was obviously intended to be used by the poet and his drinking buddies. Some (e.g. Ian Morris) have argued that linen was common in Lydia and the inclusion of linen corslets by Alcaeus lent the poem an "exotic" flair, but that's nonsense. (Basically, I'd say that linen was common throughout the eastern Mediterranean seaboard for sure.)

And we have Homer, of course. If you subscribe to the school of thought that believes the Homeric epics are an accurate description of the Bronze Age (which is demonstrably false), this won't convince you. However, if you hold that the material culture in the epics is, by and large, contemporary with Homer himself (ca. 700 BC), then obviously those offer further references to linothorakes used by Greeks in the Archaic period at least (e.g. Il. 2.529, referring to the Lesser Ajax wearing linen). 

There's an excellent article on the use of linen textiles and flax in Greece, written by Marie-Louise Nosch, available on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/13138649/Linen_..._and_trade
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#12
We don't know that linen corselets were common among any people at all. We know that they were used but not whether they were common. The Bronze Age went for a long time and society went through a lot of changes over that time. IMO Homer's description of things is very accurate for the END of that period. We have two physical examples of Greek linen armour. There were several fragments found at Mycenae dating to the 14th C and a larger example found at Patras dating to the 12th C. The latter dates to the same period as the alleged date of the Trojan War. There are many aspects of Homer's text that are consistent with this period. If the chronology revisionists are correct, and I think they are, then we can reduce these dates by a couple of centuries, bringing the Trojan War and the end of the Bronze Age back to the tenth century.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#13
(03-10-2016, 12:20 PM)Dan Howard Wrote: The Bronze Age went for a long time and society went through a lot of changes over that time. IMO Homer's description of things is very accurate for the END of that period. We have two physical examples of Greek linen armour. One found at Mycenae dating to the 14th C and one found at Patras dating to the 12th C. The latter dates to the same period as the Trojan War. There are many aspects of Homer's text are consistent with the end of the Bronze Age.

This opens up a can of worms that I don't really want to go into much on a public forum, as experience tells me it's a never-ending debate in which neither side will convince the other. (And I would add that in academic circles, the idea that Homer can be used as a source for the Bronze Age hasn't been taken seriously for at least the past twenty years.)

But very briefly: there are some elements in Homer's poetry that are clearly Bronze Age in source, such as the political geography, but the material culture of the poems corresponds much more closely with that of Homer's own time (this includes, e.g., shields: see Hans van Wees's comments in, for example, one of the appendices in Greek Warfare: Myths & Realities). The palaces described by Homer, for example, don't conform to the Mycenaean palaces, but are more similar to the houses of the eighth and seventh centuries BC. And so on. There's a good article by Jan Paul Crielaard (coincidentally my PhD supervisor) in his edited volume Homeric Questions that deals with the archaeological side of things, as far as dating Homer is concerned.
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#14
It isn't all that complicated. Homer described a military conflict that most people agree occurred at the end of the Bronze Age. He said that linen armour was used by the Greeks during that conflict. We have a physical example of linen armour that was found in Greece and dates to the same time period. How can you claim that this armour wasn't used during that time but was really used five hundred years later?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#15
(03-10-2016, 01:24 PM)Dan Howard Wrote: It isn't all that complicated. Homer described a military conflict that most people agree occurred at the end of the Bronze Age. He said that linen armour was used by the Greeks during that conflict. We have a physical example of linen armour that was found in Greece and dates to the same time period. How can you claim that this armour wasn't used during that time but was really used five hundred years later?

I'm not claiming it wasn't used -- I guess you didn't read my book? There's a whole chapter on the Mycenaeans in there and, indeed, they used linen armour. It would be silly to say otherwise. The main point is that the material culture in Homer, taken as a whole, better fits the period of Homer's own age than the Mycenaean era (e.g. descriptions of buildings, of shields, etc.), and the society described by Homer doesn't correspond with what we know of the Mycenaeans (but does for the Dark Age/Archaic period). But of course, there's stuff that's similar from one period to the next (i.e. continuity), as in the basic shape of galleys, the use of Naue-II swords, the use of light two-wheeled chariots, and so forth.

Edit: for more on Homer and history, see my blog posts on the topic:

- http://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/pw/...ry-part-1/
- http://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/pw/...ry-part-2/

I think that covers the issue sufficiently.
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