Wikipedia lorica segmentata article

[FAVENTIANVS]

Although I think both correct construction processes need a skilled craftsman/craftswoman (which I'm not), I think the hamata construction, added to this, needs a lot of patience and perseverance.

And STUPIDLY I clicked on the wrong poll option!!!!! :evil: :evil: :oops: :? roll: :evil:

Well, as I told you yesterday:

[Tarbicus]

So, Martin takes 40 hours to make a seg; Legio VI Victrix quote around 15-20 hours to make a Newstead seg. Average of, let's say, 30 hours.

A modelling website, which cites its references so is researched, quotes 180 man hours to make a lorica hamata from 22,000 1/4"" rings. Another source on a forum took 50 man hours using 1/2" rings, which means it would have taken 200 hours with 1/4" rings (twice as many across and vertically). Let's call that 190 hours.

That makes hamata 6.33 times longer to put together than segmentata. That's more than 6 times the personnel to be paid, maintained, whichever, depending on if they were slaves or freemen.

Henry Cleere, in his chapter on Ironmaking in the 1976 book Roman Crafts (edited by Strong & Brown), believes that refined iron was a cheap commodity. Given that both seg plates and stamped rings underwent the same process of flattening, and riveted rings had to undergo a more intricate process in order to give their shape, I am reluctant to say that preparation of the raw materials of a seg was a longer process - the opposite if anything. The number of rivets for a seg is hugely less also. As for how the armourers acquired the raw iron blooms, it would seem they simply bought them in pre-prepared from foundries.

I have to say, I think the comparison between costs of a seg and hamata today still stand up. Ergo, hamata is more expensive to make. Even the argument that slave labour could not make segs holds no ground with me. It was common practice to use slaves as accountants, cooks, and in other skilled jobs and labour, and I don't see why segmentata manufacture would be an exception. The origins of the artesans making either is surely irrelevant.

[mcbishop]

I'm a bit non-plussed by the Wikipedia lorica segmentata entry, which boldly states that a seg was more expensive to make than hamata?

I must admit to having had a hand in the lorica seg entry at an early stage but given up in despair as increasingly intellectually challenged additions (and removals) turned it into something almost, but not completely, unlike a plausible entry on lorica segmentata. At least my (miniscule) contributions on the Fokker triplane, Werner Voß, and the Usipi remain more or less unmolested... as yet. I blame White House policy wonks;-)

Mike Bishop
(Heading for The Big 500!)

[Tarbicus]

I must admit to having had a hand in the lorica seg entry at an early stage but given up in despair as increasingly intellectually challenged additions (and removals) turned it into something almost, but not completely, unlike a plausible entry on lorica segmentata.

Aha! Go and change it back, now! :wink: Better still, tell me what was taken out of yours and I'll go put it back in.

If you think I'm talking twaddle please say. I obviously have a bee in my bonnet about this, and if you can shed any light on the subject please do. Maybe I'm exceptionally grumpy about it because I've got a stinking cold, but I don't mind being made out as an idiot. Obviously. I've got to know!!

At least my (miniscule) contributions on the Fokker triplane, Werner Voß, and the Usipi remain more or less unmolested... as yet. I blame White House policy wonks;-)

At least some things are sacred.

(Heading for The Big 500!)

You're not that old, surely?

[TraderTrey9785]

I'm not sure if it is of any help, but being a college student, naturally the university and its professors spend a lot of time about making sure that sources are accurate and appropriate. I can't tell you the number of times that I've seen students get in academic trouble for citing information from wikipedia. Anyone can pretty much post anything on their, including (as my professors have mentioned) drunk college students. It isn't that reliable of a source, so I wouldn't take anything that is posted on there too seriously.

Regarding the armor, I'm not sure, but I would agree that it would depend on the quality of the iron being used and the skill of the individual blacksmith...initially I would agree with you Tarbicus about which is harder to manufacture.


Best of luck!

[mcbishop]

I'm not sure if it is of any help, but being a college student, naturally the university and its professors spend a lot of time about making sure that sources are accurate and appropriate. I can't tell you the number of times that I've seen students get in academic trouble for citing information from wikipedia. Anyone can pretty much post anything on their, including (as my professors have mentioned) drunk college students. It isn't that reliable of a source, so I wouldn't take anything that is posted on there too seriously.

This whole thing came to a head when the head of the Britannica was slagging off the Wikipedia over its sources and reliability. I'm sorry? Since when has ANY book been immune to equal amounts of stupidity and inaccuracy? You should hear the howls of outrage when any new 'authoritative' work on something archaeological by an 'authority' is unfortunate enough to be let anywhere near me (and if you want real bile-laden scathing comments, you should hear my wife... not least on the subject of my writing!). This is just the stuff I know; it makes me then question all the books I read about stuff I don't know (which is most things).

At least the WikiPedia's problems are out there and known; books all-too-often assume a spurious authoritativeness that they frankly do not deserve just because some big trees died to make them live. You can have that from a writer, publisher, editor, typesetter, reader, and former library assistant; I know, love, cuddle, sniff, and generally adore books (few things are fluffier or more pert than a good book) BUT do not over-invest them in wonderfulness. Editors? Fact-checkers? Who are they?! Publishing is a crap shoot with only a hint of Darwinism and far too much silly money tied up in it. Now everyone be quiet, I'm going to watch The Daily Show...

Mike Bishop
A bookmonger

[Crispvs]

Popping back to the subject of whether it would be cheaper to make hamata or segmentata, I think some people are forgetting how easy it is for us to obtain ready made materials in the modern world. Iron would not be likely to have been supplied to smiths as ready made sheet such as we have today. It is more likely that it would have been bought in as billets and hammered into plates. If the billets were anything like the Celtic 'currency bars' I have seen in museums I can imagine a good blacksmith being able to produce segmentata plates reasonably quickly. Mail had to be made from wire, which does not occur naturally. I would imagine (although I may be wrong about this) that the time taken to forge those same billets of iron into rods which could then be drawn through progressively smaller holes to narrow and and lengthen them in order to make wire would add considerably to the time it would take to make mail. My guess, on the basis of watching a blacksmith work, rather than having experience myself, is that wire manufacture would be a more specialised and time consuming task than forging thin iron plate from billets.
So are we talking about the time it takes to make mail or segmentata once you have your materials ready or are we talking about the time it takes to go from cold billets of iron to a finished hamata or segmentata?

Crispvs

[Tarbicus]

So are we talking about the time it takes to make mail or segmentata once you have your materials ready or are we talking about the time it takes to go from cold billets of iron to a finished hamata or segmentata?

From cold billets of iron, because that's what the armourers/ slaves/whichevers would have been given to start with to make the actual item, from what I can tell.

Unless, they bought both billets/blooms of iron AND pre-prepared wire. Who knows?!

I'm just drumming my fingers on the keyboard now....

[mcbishop]

So are we talking about the time it takes to make mail or segmentata once you have your materials ready or are we talking about the time it takes to go from cold billets of iron to a finished hamata or segmentata?

From cold billets of iron, because that's what the armourers/ slaves/whichevers would have been given to start with to make the actual item, from what I can tell.

Unless, they bought both billets/blooms of iron AND pre-prepared wire. Who knows?!

I'm just drumming my fingers on the keyboard now....

Drum away! The evidence is mounting that billets were not the raw material from which armourers worked and that plate (possibly rolled) was available to them. As attendees at the last ROMEC heard, it gets worse; the metallographic structure of Roman steel plate can only really be explained by the use of some sort of casting process (all to do with the lines of slag in the section). There will be something about this in the next JRMES, where details of the analysis and reconstruction of the Carlisle scale 'collar' will be published by David Sim. So the order of the day, for authentic lorica seg, is plate made by geniuses, armour put together (badly) by monkeys.

Mike Bishop

[Tarbicus]

Drum away! The evidence is mounting that billets were not the raw material from which armourers worked and that plate (possibly rolled) was available to them. As attendees at the last ROMEC heard, it gets worse; the metallographic structure of Roman steel plate can only really be explained by the use of some sort of casting process (all to do with the lines of slag in the section). There will be something about this in the next JRMES, where details of the analysis and reconstruction of the Carlisle scale 'collar' will be published by David Sim. So the order of the day, for authentic lorica seg, is plate made by geniuses, armour put together (badly) by monkeys.

I'm drumming baby! I'm really drumming!


That's so cool, thanks Mike. That makes sense for the prevalence and introduction of segs. (Flippant thought enters head) I wonder if invention of the seg was because of the above platemaking method being invented at that particular time?

Anyway, it would probably reduce the costs of equipping the army dramatically; something I'm sure Augustus and his bead-counters would have relished the idea of, whilst still equipping the troops with an effective armour.

(Another very flippant thought not to actually be taken seriously) If the plate was cast, I wonder if the individual seg plates were cast in shape, before bending? That would make the steady supply of repair parts an easy and cheap commodity to produce. Anyone know of tooling/chisel marks at the edges of seg plates?

[mcbishop]

If the plate was cast, I wonder if the individual seg plates were cast in shape, before bending? That would make the steady supply of repair parts an easy and cheap commodity to produce. Anyone know of tooling/chisel marks at the edges of seg plates?

We're not talking cast iron here (it would shatter as soon as you sneezed on it) but rather a technique for producing liquid iron which is then worked into flat plate, possibly using rolling mills or trip hammers or the like (hang on - is that a robot's arm...?). David has even worked out how to case-harden the individual scales to achieve the effect shown in the metallography. I would say this is all rather cool... but in fact, it's rather hot.

Mike Bishop
Reaching for that 500...

[Dan Howard]

It only takes one hack or miscreant with an agenda to corrupt wikipedia. Here is an example that I was involved in.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread ... adid=62072

[Tarbicus]

Well, if you changed the definition to what you posted on SFI, he went and changed it back to his.

Twonk.

[Dan Howard]

Yeah I know. It doesn't matter how well researched a piece is, if someone disagrees then they can remove it. And this isn't politically related. Try looking up entries about George Bush, or War on Terror, etc. The main advantage of Wikipedia is also its greatest disadvantage.

Oh, regarding the above poll: why would someone bother to vote if they didn't have an opinion?

[Tarbicus]

Oh, regarding the above poll: why would someone bother to vote if they didn't have an opinion?

The agnostics have just as much right to a say as the believers and atheists.