12-09-2006, 07:23 PM
Actually no, you're right about it being lamellar- it's made of several different large pieces inside that overlap and thicken certian areas and the different sections overlap outside as well- it's lamellar and laminated and composite actually if you add in small arms protective ceramic plates.
And Henk's right about mail still being used; actually I can recall pictures of weird, probably more experimental than anything, armors from WWI that included sections of mail on the face in particular. It certainly speaks well of the design that it's been usable for, what 2500 years?
The idea of the segmentata going out of use because of a shortage of brass seems a touch far-fetched- given how little of the metal there really is, masswise, in the armor. Not only that but the fact that there's actually MORE brass in the later Newstead than the earlier Corbridge cuirass and in truth there's no real reason the parts had to be brass- they could have been iron and functioned just as well (maybe better). It seems to have been largely for show- using the same metal for military objects that's used for coins certainly does portray the richness of a nation, doesn't it?
I'm intrigued by Dr. Thomas' suggestion that there might not in fact have been even much mail around in later times when the segmentata went out of use- the assumption people make has always been that mail came back to replace segmented armor- I've never heard anyone suggest that there might have been something of a hole left in the use of metal protective armor by the 'demise' of the segmentata. That actually makes a whole lot more sense to me than the usual, difficult to rationalize, alternative. The Empire was not doing so well later on so if the segmentata were in fact cheaper to produce than mail, why go from a cheap to an expensive form of armor when you have less to spend? It makes more sense that there'd actually be less armor used...
And Henk's right about mail still being used; actually I can recall pictures of weird, probably more experimental than anything, armors from WWI that included sections of mail on the face in particular. It certainly speaks well of the design that it's been usable for, what 2500 years?
The idea of the segmentata going out of use because of a shortage of brass seems a touch far-fetched- given how little of the metal there really is, masswise, in the armor. Not only that but the fact that there's actually MORE brass in the later Newstead than the earlier Corbridge cuirass and in truth there's no real reason the parts had to be brass- they could have been iron and functioned just as well (maybe better). It seems to have been largely for show- using the same metal for military objects that's used for coins certainly does portray the richness of a nation, doesn't it?
I'm intrigued by Dr. Thomas' suggestion that there might not in fact have been even much mail around in later times when the segmentata went out of use- the assumption people make has always been that mail came back to replace segmented armor- I've never heard anyone suggest that there might have been something of a hole left in the use of metal protective armor by the 'demise' of the segmentata. That actually makes a whole lot more sense to me than the usual, difficult to rationalize, alternative. The Empire was not doing so well later on so if the segmentata were in fact cheaper to produce than mail, why go from a cheap to an expensive form of armor when you have less to spend? It makes more sense that there'd actually be less armor used...
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