Corbridge A Breastplates - to cross or not cross diagonally?

[sulla felix]

edited for violation of personal attack rules

[Tarbicus]

Buried to be retrieved later? Nope, buried to be hidden from scavengers. Can't burn it, not worth carting away... so, you bury it.

A pic of the hoard:
http://www.legionxxiv.org/lrgcorbrghoard.jpg

Not just seg parts in there, but a bunch of other useful stuff.

[Caius Fabius]

[size=200:36b99mc6]warning! No personal attacks.[/size]
if it continues, something will be done, and it will not be helpful to the other people who are trying to discuss things politely.

Public Warning

[Hibernicus]

The Hoard box is loaded with stuff.. bits, parts, pieces, scrap... nails, spikes, spearheads, gaming pieces, a bucket.... Lots of interesting and useful things... to us

All I'm sayng is that if it was that valuable to the Romans, why wasn't it carted away? Most of what's in the Box can't be destroyed by burning. Why leave it strewn about for the bad guys? ..... or worse.. in a nice convenient to carry away box? Or maybe that's where the box was deliberately placed... as storage for stuff that might be useful later. I have several "Hoards" if that's the case!. .. one is called the kitchen junk drawer....

Stuff that's deliberately buried isn't always treasure. Sometimes its trash. Archaelogists spend a great deal of time digging in trash deposits.

Not that it proves anything but ... when I was a landscape contractor, and when I repaired irrigation manifolds (banks of in-ground valves) I always reburied the broken parts knowing/hoping that someday... in the future, hundreds/thousands of years in the future... someone would be digging that site as an archaeologist and would come across the parts, new (to me) and old and would have one hell of a time trying to piece it all back together.. exacerbated by the extra bits! :lol:

But, we have no proof about why the Hoard was in the ground do we? None. Just guesses.

Side note: my prior post was editied, understandably and fairly under the circumstance, but it was a one liner accompanied by a smilie and its intent was to evoke a chuckle.

[petrinus]

hibernicus, question totaly unrelated to the thread, (but i will remark im eager to see your work) whats the name of the shoulder carry crossmember wooden thingy in your photo, it served as both an armor tree and a ruck tool correct?

[sulla felix]

Hibernicus,

I can assure you that your now deleted one liner was taken as intended. Hopefully my riposte was taken as intended too. Obviously the Moderator did not agree.

[Hibernicus]

Hibernicus, question totaly unrelated to the thread, (but i will remark im eager to see your work) whats the name of the shoulder carry crossmember wooden thingy in your photo, it served as both an armor tree and a ruck tool correct?

FURCA

We're in the process of building a better steam bending box to make farm implements including FURCA that are split and bent.. into the shape of a capiltal "T" inorder to possibly use them as upright papilio poles.

.... steam bent wood. It's easy and fun.

[Hibernicus]

I understand Sulla.. and thank you for taking me off your "ignore" list.

I never understood why anyone would use that feature especially when folk, well meaning folk, folk with a lot to contribute, disagree and interpret things differently.. maybe even with strong conviction! .. or passion? Isn't that part of why many of us are here? To explore and discuss various interpretations?

Imagine how dull discusions about segmentatas would be if both Matt L and I had each other on the "ignore" list?

Side note: we have a very busy two weeks coming up.. Roman stuff/events and travel . .. and installing the wife's new dishwasher... oh goody goody a couple of days in the crawl space under the kitchen.. yay.... must be love!

[ambrosius]

Everyone seems to be thinking with a mental picture of a legionary at rest, arms down at his sides. But if his arms were raised (like often in battle) the pectoral plates, if angled, would still safely cover his sternum when his arms and shoulders were raised due to the inital overlap and angle. If they were neatly vertical and parallel at rest, wouldn't there be a chance of a gap showing in combat?

Well you could do a trial on that, Jim 8) The pectoral plates shouldn't
change their angle if you raise your arms (they obviously couldn't in
a Newstead :lol: ) If you raise your arms, then the shoulder-guards
just go up. That's why they're articulated.

Ambrosius/Mike

[Tarbicus]

Everyone seems to be thinking with a mental picture of a legionary at rest, arms down at his sides. But if his arms were raised (like often in battle) the pectoral plates, if angled, would still safely cover his sternum when his arms and shoulders were raised due to the inital overlap and angle. If they were neatly vertical and parallel at rest, wouldn't there be a chance of a gap showing in combat?

Well you could do a trial on that, Jim 8) The pectoral plates shouldn't
change their angle if you raise your arms (they obviously couldn't in
a Newstead :lol: ) If you raise your arms, then the shoulder-guards
just go up. That's why they're articulated.

Ambrosius/Mike

So I just went to my Corbridge C, lifted the lesser shoulder guard all the way up, and the pectoral plate changed angle.

Added: I went back to it and lifted both LSG's, and both pectorals changed angle to make a vertical line in the centre. Still left enough room for my neck as well.

[sulla felix]

If you think about that is logical because the internal leathers for the shoulder plates actually connect to the breastplate?

[marsvigilia]

"Replicas" of what? You have spent most of the thread completely ignoring the evidence and dismissing the Corbridge evidence as untrustworthy junk. Now you will make a replica!

Replicas of the Hoard. As I've said I've made segs for small bodies and they come closest to the Hoard and do not cross as severely as some have illustrated.

I still believe that the Hoard might be useless to them junk. Buried to be retrieved later? Nope, buried to be hidden from scavengers. Can't burn it, not worth carting away... so, you bury it.

This is one of the things I don't understand Sean. The pieces in the Hoard work fine if crossed, and clearly do not work if vertical. And so you conclude, "Aha! the pieces are wrong because I know they should be vertical." This is very strange to me.

Besides if the Romans were essentially throwing away junk so it couldn't have been used by the enemy, it wouldn't have been packed in a box all neatly together, it would have been partially destroyed, smashed, etc. Then scattered and buried in a trash pit. You are really grasping at straws here. Do you know of any other cases were Roman trash is packaged in a stout wooden crate?

Look, the Romans made thousands and thousands of sets of segmentata armor. The vast majority have to have been made so that they would fit humans. (Note, humans do NOT have necks only 2in (5cm) wide.) But you would have us believe that the Romans, who have this vast experience with segmentatas, make several plates that are far too small to be worn by anyone. Then they compound their mistake by actually assembling these mis-shaped/undersized pieces into segmentatas. Then somehow, add stress and wear to the parts, which would not happen if they were just sitting in a box. And then of all the tens of thousands of sets manufactured, these are the ones we find. This is so logically implausible and statistically improbable that it does not pass the giggle test.

Do you really believe this? Since the Hoard pieces do work, the burden of proof is on you to prove that they do not, and that the evidence should be ignored. All fantasies about confusing future archaeologists aside, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You have offered no proof or even evidence, merely claims of experience and an aesthetic preference for vertical plates.

While admire a some of the work you do, I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the segmentatas that you are making are artistic fantasy pieces.

I ask again how can someone so concerned about producing scutums that DO match the historical evidence, insist on producing segmentata that DO NOT match the historical evidence?

[scythius]

Besides if the Romans were essentially throwing away junk so it couldn't have been used by the enemy, it wouldn't have been packed in a box all neatly together, it would have been partially destroyed, smashed, etc. Then scattered and buried in a trash pit. You are really grasping at straws here. Do you know of any other cases were Roman trash is packaged in a stout wooden crate? "

My question to you is this - how exactly do you suggest that the Romans reduce these bits of metal to a form that the locals could not re-use? Any way that would render the metal unusable would be disastrously expensive in terms of time and resources - much simpler to bury it and hope it's not found.

The value of the metal scraps isn't necessarily in what use the Roman metalworkers intended, but what the locals could re-process these raw materials into.

It's been a while since I've leafed through the Hoard report at the local Uni, but I recall that there was a bunch of stuff that would qualify as 'scrap' by nearly anyone's definition )bent nails, broken projectile points...)

[marsvigilia]

[My question to you is this - how exactly do you suggest that the Romans reduce these bits of metal to a form that the locals could not re-use? Any way that would render the metal unusable would be disastrously expensive in terms of time and resources - much simpler to bury it and hope it's not found.

The value of the metal scraps isn't necessarily in what use the Roman metalworkers intended, but what the locals could re-process these raw materials into.

It's been a while since I've leafed through the Hoard report at the local Uni, but I recall that there was a bunch of stuff that would qualify as 'scrap' by nearly anyone's definition )bent nails, broken projectile points...)

When nails have to be made by hand, a bent nail can be restaightened and reused. So that is not necessarily trash. Segmentata could easily be smashed to a crumpled mess with a sledge or similar tool. The spear tips could have all the tips broken off. The coins? Are you seriously telling me that the coins were considered trash?

The box? Do you think the Romans used wooden boxes like we use plastic trash bags? There may have been assorted odds and ends, and of only middling value, but this was clearly not trash.

Bury trash sure. But in a sturdy wooden box? Come on this is realy a very poor line of reasoning.

But if armor is made that directly and deliberately contradicts the known historical evidence, how are these not fantasy pieces?

[scythius]

But if armor is made that directly and deliberately contradicts the known historical evidence, how are these not fantasy pieces?

That's your arguement with Hib, not with me. Don't drag me into the segmentata design jihad part of this thread :lol:

The box? Do you think the Romans used wooden boxes like we use plastic trash bags?

No, but I do think that they were used to keep thing from getting underfoot. Wooden boxes and baskets were the Rubbermaid tubs of the day. A well-crafted box is just a workaday container - although to modern sensabiliies a wooden box is anything but mundane.

You are ignoring the point of my question, however - how do you deny the use of the items to the hostiles, since you don't have the capabilities to destroy them?