Corbridge A Breastplates - to cross or not cross diagonally?

[sulla felix]

Also back to Barry's original point. The plates shouldn't be designed (altered from the originals) to ensure this cross, but make them to the pattern and take it from there.

Mark,

If you make them to the "patterns" (closely following the original Corbridge finds) then they have to cross (and H R Robinson seems to have thought the same in his reconstruction of a Corbridge A). That is the point Matt is making, and that is what I have discovered when assembling. It seems as though you have to do things to the plates (ignore the breastplate to back plate measurement ratio on the actual artefacts for example) to force them to fit neatly and vertically. That is not to suggest that vertical is wrong (and indeed the angle of the breastplate fittings is intriguing), just that the actual artefacts seem to be indicating something different. That is what makes this "hobby" so interesting (and infuriating sometimes!)