Some Illerup pictures; Germanic and Roman stuff ca 200 AD

[nithijo]

Any original painted spear shafts?

None that I know of

Some sword pics:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... group6.jpg

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... group5.jpg

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... group4.jpg

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... e_head.jpg

I've found some pics of shield bosses.

Any interest?

Cheers
Nithijo

aka Soren Larsen

[Lepidina]

Great pictures of the horse stuff!! I need to get to that museum.

The horsey stuff that you need an English name for is a "bridle". The straight metal piece is the bit which has reins attached. Did you notice if the rings of the bit were loose on the straight part or attached?

Nasty looking spurs tho' I suspect that they used heavy saddle blankets and thus needed something pokier to get through all of that.

Did you notice how the saddle was constructed? I just got the Osprey "Enemies of Rome" book which shows a couple of mounted Germans in saddles similar to that except with stirrups. The stirrups are completely wrong and I suspected that the saddles were too as they looked like McClellans from the US Civil War but now that you posted the saddle pic, the Osprey book might be a little more accurate after all.

[S SEVERUS]

Indeed great pictures.
Is it possible that between the remains there was no chain mail?
The finds must give a correct view of arms of the Germanic peoples around 200 AD.

[nithijo]

Did you notice if the rings of the bit were loose on the straight part or attached?

Hi Lepidina

Here is a pic of one of the Illerup bridle chain sets before it was mounted on straps:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... eChain.jpg

Here is a set from Ejsbolgaard:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... eChain.jpg

Maybe this answers some of your questions

Here is some harness fittings from Illerup

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/ ... ttings.jpg

I have not looked into saddles yet.

These pictures are from 'The spoils of victory- The north in the shadow of the Roman empire'

Cheers
Nithijo

aka Soren Larsen

[nithijo]

Indeed great pictures.
Is it possible that between the remains there was no chain mail?

There was no traces of mail in the Illerup sacrifice.

The precense of socalled needlepoint arrow warheads, however suggests
that the Illerup warriors expected to encounter enemies in mail.

The needlepoints were designed to break the rings in mail and penetrate
the armour. If the enemies were not armoured normal broad arrow heads
with barbs would have been more effective, since they have a greater chance of damaging something vital in the opponents and are harder to
extract.

From the Vimose site we have a number of ring mails (1 complete)
and Vimose is earlier or contemporary with the large Illerup sacrifice
depending on which of the Vímose sacrifices the ringmails belong to.

The finds must give a correct view of arms of the Germanic peoples around 200 AD.

These sacrifices are certainly much better than grave finds or Roman
descriptions, but they do not ansver all our questions as is evident
regarding the ring mail.

We dont know if they sacrificed everything. We dont know if they sacrificed everything in the same place or in the same way.

Even if they did sacrifice everything in the same way, at the same place we dont know how much is preserved.

Even if they sacrificed everything and everything is preserved, we dont know if the sacrfices are truly representative of germanic armies.

Maybe cavalry is under-represented in the sacrifices because they
managed to flee more often when the s*** hit the fan.

Lots of questions still to be argued about ;-) )

Cheers
Nithijo

aka Soren Larsen

[Lepidina]

Thanks a bunch Soren. The reins are definitely attached to the bit. It's an interesting bit too as one usually sees that straight shape with a U bend in it on a curb bit but in the pictures, there are no shanks so it's just a mullen mouth.

[S SEVERUS]

Thanks for the reply Nithijo. (aka Soren Larsen)
Maybe mail was to expensive to bury with the dead? To pity there are still to many questions.

[Felix]

Just a footnote: the Illerup finds are not burials, but ceremonial deposits in a bog. It doesn't explain the absence of armour, though. Some of the shields which were thrown in were highly decorated, so expense doesn't seem to have been an important problem. Maybe it was more symbolic: offensive weapons and shields qualified, but helmets and armour were not regarded as the essential defining attributes of a warrior (?).