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Onward and Upward - Carthaginian reenacting
#31
Somehow I missed that post you made before the elephant post Paul...

I did have my doubts about whether that cuirass on the Chemtou relief portrayed mail. The armor itself has no distiguishing details on it while the fittings and a pteruges are carved with high level of detail and the shield next to it has scales carved on the little snakes decorating the shield face. If the artist was merely trying to capture the feel of Hellenistic equipment then the appearence of the cuirass makes sense.

Pikes, it would seem, are also not an option.

Actually, based on what you've written Hannibal's Carthaginian and Lybi-phoenetian troops might very well have looked more Roman than Hellenistic right from the start...maybe...

It also seems like the most accurate way to portray one of Hannibal's Carthaginians would be to choose a time after Trasimene and Trebia and make use of Republican Roman equipment since we know for certain that is what they were using. You would have to make it clear that you were a Carthaginian by standing next to a Carthaginian standard or an elephant or, to fall back on Monty Python again, an "outrageous accent"...

Perhaps paint the thueros white?

Prior to that though...through their merhcant fleet, Carthage had contact with just about everyone in the Mediterranean so the best we can say is that they probably looked somewhat Hellenistic. If I am not mistaken, the Carthaginian native troops were citizen-soldiers who most likely supplied their own equipment, there might be a chance that they did not have a uniform appearence. They could have quite literally been wearing anything that any other Hellenistic army was wearing...if that is the case then you almost can't go wrong in choosing equipment...

This is as much fun as researching the Bronze Age! :lol:
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#32
On the topic of the Chembou carvings and the picture in Greece and Rome at War, I noticed when I was studying it that the image on the right had been rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise if you prefer). The shield is actually right next to the cuirass in the left hand picture.

In the picture below you can see the original image on top and an image I created by rotating the shield back to its proper orientation and repositioning it to about where it should be. The camera was centered more on the armor for the left hand picture and more on the shield for the right hand picture so the images do not precisely line up.

[Image: rotatedshield.jpg]
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#33
to Ruben ;-

Yes, the subject is worthy of much more study.I am not sure that I can entirely agree with you regarding trade, though.Throughout human history,the eager search for better weapons has meant that the "arms trade" is usually among the foremost, and is as true of our own times as any other. For example, it is now thought that many of the 'poor quality copied Roman weapons" frequently found in Northern burials were actually Roman trade goods (c.f. European trade of muskets and hatchets etc to North Amer-indians )
On a slightly different tack, Carthage's well-known close trade/alliance with the Etruscans would fulfil both your criteria and trade as a means for Thracian style helmets etc to get to Carthage.
The late Roman sculpture referred to has sometimes been associated with Sulla - well spotted, Ruben ! Of course the fact that it is the only major piece of late republican sculpture extant no doubt helps.... it is sometimes attributed to a pergamene sculptor on the grounds of quality and style (e.g. by D.Strong )
As to the tombstone of Abd-Asart, it is from the numidian city of Cirta (Constantine), identified as 2nd century B.C.The tomb is sometimes mis-identified as that of a "spanish mercenary" ( presumably because of the style of weapons) but the inscription is clear, and the helmet is not a known spanish style,but is similar to the simplistic conical types known from the few Punic depictions. The best discussion of Carthaginian arms is in Duncan Head's"Armies of the Macedonian and Punic wars". A photo of the tombstone is illustrated in Connolly's "Greece and Rome at War, on p.150.
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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#34
Hi Dan !
That's a canny observation, and the monument certainly looks better re-assembled. Well done.
You could depict an African as a post Trasimene "pseudo-roman", but I believe it is possible to depict a pre-Trasimene African/Liby-phoenician fairly accurately.
Most of what follows is drawn from Duncan Head's excellent "Armies and enemies of the Punic Wars" published 1982 by Wargamers Research Group- highly recommended.
A Liby-Phoenician heavy infantryman would wear a beltless calf-length tunic, most likely red (Herodotus describes these and soft leather goatskin tunics, dyed red - the leather is what we now call 'kid' or 'morroccan' leather )Such beltless tunics continued to be worn, mostly wool, down to modern times.He would carry a Thureos, possibly white, and one or more longche. Having marched from Spain, we might allow him a spanish sword ( machaira or gladius type) but some other type of sidearm,such as a greek sword (Abd-asart appears to have a greek style hilt) would be equally possible. His helmet would be a simple type, conical or hemi-spherical, with or without cheek-pieces, or might be a montefortino. ( one of the problems where, say, a montefortino turns up in Spain is that we don't know its history - it might have been worn by a celt, a celt-iberian, a spaniard, a carthaginian or a roman or even conceivably by all in succession !! ).The simple double curved conical type is probably the most typical, but that is a guess.
If you really want to go to town, then you could adopt a Libyan hairstyle as well ! Herodotus describes several styles unique to a particular tribe. One such is the 'Makai'. The head is shaven, except for a 'mohawk' style scalplock which is plaited, with a crescent ornament hanging from the front. This type is shown on 2nd centuryA.D tombstones so was worn throughout. Some Libyans wore red tattoos/body paint. ('course this look is kinda hard to explain on a monday morning....... but it would be fun !! )
Carthaginian officers would be better equipped, for example, with a Thracian or Thraco-Attic helmet as depicted on a coin of Hasdrubal.
For a shield design, the horse is shown on Punic coins as symbol of the city, and the roman poet Silius Italicus in his Punic War poem refers to Hannibal displaying ( presumably on his shield) a horses head emblem, as well as Carthaginian officers with scale corselets, senior officers in puple and gold - Polybius also refers to purple clad generals - and crests of red, white and yellow.(Silius account, with its myths and fantasies is often rejected as a historical source, but the details are likely to be authentic as they were well known. )
That should whet your apetite, Dan ! !
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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#35
It certainly has whet my appetite - I am going to have to track that book down! Thanks!

The detail on the shield in that picture in amazing. You can't quite see it in the small pic I posted so here is a larger version:

[Image: rotated1.jpg]

The detail that caught my eye and made me realize the picture had been rotated was the gorgon face in the center of the shield. The narrowed eyes, flaring nostrils, the fangs, and the tongue sticking out were apparently "must have's" for your fearsome gorgon imagery. I have a stylized version on my Thracian pelta so when I saw the tongue sticking out in the picture I knew what I was looking at right away.

If the armor and shield have been done to the same scale - that is one big shield...

Here is another image I created using existing portions of the carving to come as close as I could to recreating what the shield might have looked like originally:

[Image: sheild2.jpg]

Impressive even if it might only be what one sculptor thought a Carthaginian shield might have looked like!
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#36
Nice reconstruction, Dan !! One problem is the shield's blazon - Athena's gorgon and aegis -clearly Greek, and hardly likely to be used by those whose arch-enemies were the Greeks !!

The enlargement shows the detail that the sculptor produced - mail would not have been difficult - look at the pteryges for example.

But see above, the sculpture is likely late -100 to 40 B.C and hence roman and is considered to be very close to Roman contemporary sculpture.

Glad to see you are now motivated -if you go the "whole hog" we all want to see the photos of you with your plaited "mohawk" cut posted here on RAT !!!
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
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#37
Did I mention we have a new book on Carthaginian Armies coming? It won't be ready till spring 2009 I'm afraid, but if you are still at it by then it may be some help!

Phil
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#38
Ooooo! I'll be looking to add that book to my library!

I was looking at pictures of Carthaginian coins in order to get a sense for their "horse and a tree" theme - similar to the "Big Black Horse Under a Cherry Tree" only not nearly so musical - anyway, I discovered this picture that really surprised me - check out the helmet:

[Image: CarthageCoin.jpg]

That is definitely an Etrusco-Corinthian helm - note the cheek pieces and the chinstrap. Confusedhock:

As I noted on the picture, this coin is dated to 228 to 221 BC and was apparently found in the area of New Carthage.
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#39
As I mentioned above I was studying the images on Carthaginian coins to get a feel for the sorts of images Carthaginians might have painted on their shields.

The horse and tree motif was apparently the most popular and the horse could be in just about any pose imaginable. They also liked pairing the horse image with an image of what seems to be there battle standard - the crescent and disk combination. A star symbol or a sun symbol were other options. Sometimes they just protrayed the head of a horse - sometimes with the palm tree or the standard or the star symbol, etc.

Aside from the Horse and Tree, other options seem to be: the palm tree alone, a pegasus, a crab, dolphins, a lion, a bull, or an elephant.

I've put together an assortment of these images (the images in the first row are the ones with the crescent and moon standard):

[Image: Carthagecoins.jpg]
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#40
Yup ! And there is another coin, also issued by the Barcids, in Spain at that time which has a male head on the obverse, and a classic Late Thracian/Thraco-Attic type helmet with cheek-pieces on the reverse.
Coins are useful in that they depict emblems of the issuing entity, but they don't necessarily translate to shield designs, though they are useful for style and type.....
To support Silius Italicus' statement that Hannibal had a horses head emblem, is the statement that the horse was sacred to the god Ba'al (I can't recall where I read that ), and would thus be appropriate for him. ( the name in punic is more like 'Chanu-ad-Ba'al', meaning 'Glory-of-Ba'al')
The palm tree was a symbol of the city of Carthage(Q'art-Hadasht - New City) IIRC, some sort of pun on the name (?)
BTW, the guy wearing the Etrusco-Corinthian helmet is usually identified as Hannibal, and the coin is a di-shekel (two shekel piece)
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
Reply
#41
I read somewhere that the horse under a tree design comes from the story about the founding of Carthage. Something along the lines of they knew they had come to the right spot when they found a palm tree with the skeleton of a horse beneath it. I was originally thinking that should have been a bad sign, but if the horse was sacred to Baal then I suppose it actually would be a good sign.

On the other hand, things did end rather poorly for them...perhaps they should have kept going until they found a palm tree with a live horse beneath it...
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#42
Sounds like a good "founding fable".....but in that case why are the horse (which is always shown live ! ) and the palm tree often depicted separately ?
Maybe the story was invented by someone who had seen the coins....
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
Reply
#43
Just guessing as I type at this point: it probably was made up just as you say, live horses look snazzier on coins than dead horses, or it is foreshadowing: they weren't supposed to stop until they found a live horse under a tree, and when they decided that a dead horse was good enough (no point beating a dead horse after all) they doomed their city to eventually be destroyed and they put the live horse on the coins because that is what their original prophecy or what-have-you said.

On a more serious note - if the horse is supposed to be sacred to Baal then perhaps the tree is sacred to Tanit? She was their version of the goddess of the harvest etc and the patron goddess of Carthage. A palm tree with coconuts is a very bounty of the land sort of image which I think would be appropriate for a goddess of the harvest type goddess. If that is acceptable then it might be enough to feel safe in using a palm tree as an shield emblem or, even better, the tree and the horse as a shield emblem...maybe...

The horse alone would make a good shield emblem, but I think the tree and the horse would be more interesting and perhaps portray a more uniquely Carthaginian appearance.
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
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#44
Sounds plausible, along with the stylised "Tanit" emblem so often seen.....
And , as you have noted earlier, no-one is in a position to say you are wrong.....

Go for it !!!!!
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)

"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
Reply
#45
Thanks. That's given me some options for the Carthaginian wargaming army I'm just painting up too.

Phil
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