Ave!
Not to be too blunt, but I think that theory is basically bunk. I run into things like this all the time--there are whole books written about Bronze Age warfare that conclude that EVERY piece of bronze armor yet found must be "ceremonial" or "parade" armor because it's only a millimeter thick. Heck, sometimes they'll even say that about stuff that's TWO mm thick! Much of this seems to be based on an old article by John Coles on Bronze Age shields, in which he performed a "test" on reconstructed shields. Instead of bronze he used copper for the shield, and it was apparently only 0.3 mm thick. Needless to say, he was able to chop right through it, but from this concluded that all bronze armor 3 times that thick (or more) was useless. "Experts" have been citing him ever since. (The rest of the article is chock full of great information, other than that!) More recent tests by Barry Molloy have found that c. 1mm bronze is VERY resistant to weapons:
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread ... adid=21752
Good tin bronze can actually be harder than the iron weapons used against it. One mm is a very typical thickness from what I've seen, though this may be the first time I've heard of actual data on a Classical era cuirass. (It's amazing how much stuff has been found that is never measured or weighed!!) The only thing I can conclude is that the ancients were satisfied with the effectiveness of their armor!
The few organic fragments which have been found inside other bits of bronze armor (such as the Dendra cuirass) have been linen. There is a leather edging, but the linings themselves may not have been leather at all. It's an interesting topic, but the evidence is not supporting some old assumptions.
So, DID bronze armor have an organic lining of some sort? Sure! Lots of other forms of armor did, for various reasons. But I do NOT think this was some way of making a "composite" armor--the metal does the protecting, and the lining simply protects your clothing from the armor. I think 1 mm bronze or a little less was considered perfectly good protection for a very long time.
As a further interesting point, there are also some late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age bronze shields from Europe that are often thought to be ceremonial because they are so THICK! Can you say "Double Standard"?
Not trying to rant, here, this subject is just one of my "buttons"!
Khaire,
Matthew
