Plate-mail hybrid armor

[claudia crisis]

according to perhaps the world's foremost expert in this subject, this firmly dates the inscription to the later first century BC - early first century AD. ……. ….. not "blind guesstimates," but educated ones by knowledgeable people based on a careful study of these intriguing pieces.

Could you please give the name of your "world's foremost expert" because in my years at uni in all the epigraphy classes I followed and in all the epigraphy handbooks I read at the time (mid nineties), there was a always a firm warning not to trust paleography as a datingmethod for inscriptions because it was unreliable and all effort of the epigraphists of the 19th and early 20th century to establish a chronology using letter forms and methods of inscribing were proven useless.

I would have to lean with Hans on this, that interesting as these plates are, we cannot rely too much on the epigraphy for dating.
Are you unable to name your “expertsâ€

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Thank you!

I just came up with another tantalising idea, if the armour would be real.....

Could it possibly be of Sarmatian in origin? We know that Vespasianvs used Sarmatian Cavalry, also in the Danube area, and in the eastern parts of Roman Europe.......

Just a thought......

M.VIB.M.