Leather Cuirass

[Paullus Scipio]

Sound words of advice, Robert, and I do apologise to anyone who has taken offence - there was none intended, just frustration at a seeming inability to "engage" in honest debate, supported by whatever evidence one can muster rather than the "Yes it is","No it isn't" kind of debate, but that may say as much about my failure to communicate my points properly as others failing to heed.

To Peter Raftos, excellent post!
You have 'stolen much of my thunder' in that I am in the process of trying to assemble/summarise all the known references, ( see earlier post )so we can all take a fresh view of an age-old topic - should be ready to post in a few days. Certainly this debate has led me to some new information on the subject, and hopefully others too ! And that will be a valuable thing to do - assemble all the known data on the subject from our collective knowledge, including re-enactment,( which can give us much valued practical hands-on experience) and thus allow us to all to re-assess what we "think" we know.
Please, any-one who can point to a piece of data, post it, with references of course!