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Quote:have you thought of wearing a long, full-sleeved scale shirt?  hock:
Not to mention that the one on the right seems very soft, like a tunic - maybe mail was intended for both?
But Franklin has a point - if all the other details (asrmour, helmet, grip) are wrong, can the shields be right?
Nah, pulling your leg, of course round shields are OK... :wink:
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Well,
I'd really like to see those helmets from a nearer place and better perspective. Until that I erase my comment on them :roll:
I haven't mentioned the totally correct long-sleeved hamata that the left soldier is wearing because I assumed that everybody would agree on it. Even the tuck for the belt is accurately depicted 8)
The same tuck appears and the squamata and that is a big 'no-no'! hock: Coulston already wrote on his paper that the sculptor seemingly put a squamata 'skin' on the volume of an hamata :roll:
Aitor
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.
Rolf Steiner
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Franklin wrote:
Quote:You've picked the one detail out of the entire relief that supports one of your theories and used it as evidence while dismissing all the others.
This happens a lot of the time Franklin. Either you ignore the sculptures totally because you think they are not accurate, accept them totally as accurate representations or do what most of us do and try and match archaeological finds with sculpture and literature and other forms of Roman Art.
Unfortunately for re-enactment purposes the latter course would still leave us with huge gaps in our knowledge and it would therefore not be possible to recreate the appearance of many types of Roman soldier. In most cases sculptural evidence is all we have and this is why we have endless debates about tunic colour, shield shapes and leather armour.
As Aitor rightly observed many examples of Roman sculpture show incredibly accurate details which can only have come from personal experience by the artist and yet in the same sculpture there is something else which just makes you think "what on earth is that"! In most cases the simple option is to dismiss it as an artistic error assuming therefore the artists are all Leonardo's one minute and Sumner's the next! Alternatively there is a possibility the artist is actually correct and showing us something we either do not understand yet or something which perhaps has not even been found.
So do not be too hard on poor Aitor, like all of us he is just trying to find answers to the many complex and often unsolvable questions.
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
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Ha!, you'll get no argument from me. As I say, just trying to play devil's advocate. I defer to Aitor on damn near everything. Just trying to keep him honest, as we all should do around here.
Franklin Slaton
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nice pictures. I'm going to Rome for a holiday in may. I think i'll take some pictures there (in the hope of also increasing my "popularity" here... :wink: )
BTW: if some one wants something photographed, maybe i can arange something.
gr,
Jeroen Pelgrom
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Quote:As Aitor rightly observed many examples of Roman sculpture show incredibly accurate details which can only have come from personal experience by the artist and yet in the same sculpture there is something else which just makes you think "what on earth is that"!
In other words, sometimes the artists cut corners to save time. In other cases, unexplainable items may be accurate but we're not sure what to make of them.
BTW, I'd like to express my thanks to Aitor as well for posting his sister's pictures and starting this thread.
~Theo
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Quote:nice pictures. I'm going to Rome for a holiday in may. I think i'll take some pictures there (in the hope of also increasing my "popularity" here... :wink: )
BTW: if some one wants something photographed, maybe i can arange something.
If you should happen to visit the museo della civilta romana, there once was a late roman sarcophagus on display there which, to my recollection, shows roman soldiers in different armor styles (with drilled holes representing mail, hatching representing scale and musculata). I saw this about ten years ago and the museum mostly contains copies or reconstructions. I have no idea about the provenance or authenticity of this item (or whether it may still be on display) but I would be great to know more about it and to have some pictures. I have never seen a reference to it in any publication. Thank you.
Enjoy Rome, it is a wonderful city and do not forget to have an ice cream at Giolitti!
Regards,
Jens Horstkotte
Munich, Germany
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Jeroen,
IIRW, you are a tall boy 8) My sister is only 1,60 tall and maybe you could manage to get a better angle of the fragment with the two soldiers at the Vatican Museum.
At least that would increase your popularity with me! 
Aitor
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.
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Theo wrote:
Quote:In other words, sometimes the artists cut corners to save time. In other cases, unexplainable items may be accurate but we're not sure what to make of them.
Hi Theo
Off hand the only certain case that springs to mind of artists perhaps saving time is on the Arch of Constantine when earlier sculpture was reused and the heads of Marcus Aurelius and possibly Trajan too were remodeled to look like Constantine. There may well be other examples.
In the case of the pictures Aitor has shown, as a non sculptor I do not know if it would save time to carve out the scales rather than carve mail but mail effects were often done with a drill which would appear to me to be quicker than carving. So if that is the case and the sculptor wanted to save time one could ask why are they not both drilled. Perhaps having done it once and being pleased with his work the artist simply felt there was no need to do it again, we can only speculate.
Another example of this is the Ephesus ivory sculptures where we have one example of a well executed mail shirt but nearby another figure has what looks like the plain 'leather' garment look' similar to what the auxiliaries are wearing on Trajan's column. If this figure appeared on TC it would probably be argued that his garment would have been painted to look like mail. Indeed we know that even ivory was painted in Roman times so once again we are faced with a number of possibilities.
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
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Quote:Off hand the only certain case that springs to mind of artists perhaps saving time is on the Arch of Constantine when earlier sculpture was reused and the heads of Marcus Aurelius and possibly Trajan too were remodeled to look like Constantine. There may well be other examples.
Indeed, I think the depiction of segmented armor on the Column of MA is noticeably simplified when compared to Trajan's. And, presumably, MA's column was erected in more prosperous times (i.e. before the 3rd century)
~Theo
Jaime
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