Indo-Iranian Sarmatian Contribution to Roman Army

[Alanus]

Hmm. Open at the top half between upright bands. Maybe these upper "voids" were originally leather.

PS: Speaking of Sarmatian connections, Suhel has posted his own version of the Roxolani helmet on New Products. I suggested he move the cheekpieces to the rear about a 1 1/2 cm, maybe even 2 cm. He plans a scale or chainmail aventail, I think. Nice helmet for the archers in our midst. :grin:

[Alanus]

Or from an angle it could be a bird in a cage!! :roll:

Maybe it was originally painted canary yellow! :grin:

[Robert Vermaat]

The chest - I have no idea! On one hand, they look like scales - but that style of depiction may be used for crude depictions of maille instead, and may have been used as such in other places and eras as well. I personally think it is maille, but it probably wouldn't be hard to change my mind :mrgreen:

It could just as easily be a coat of lamellar or scale, using different sized plates for the chest and abdomen, and scale or lamellar half-chaps (like the Dura ones might be, if they are not crinet pieces).

Indeed, its but agraffito and therefore hard to interpret, and indeed, tyhe artist could have meant both scale as well as mail.

Indeed it could be different sizes of the same thing, or a combination.
[attachment=4336]imagesCA12D1Z8.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=4337]imagesCAO56J7D.jpg[/attachment]

[Alanus]

Robert,

The combination in your bottom photo is awesome! I'll take one of those. Just ship it to The Great Steppes of Maine. :wink:

[Robert Vermaat]

Robert,
The combination in your bottom photo is awesome! I'll take one of those. Just ship it to The Great Steppes of Maine. :wink:

Turkish, and a bit too late for our projects..

[daryush]

Hmm. Open at the top half between upright bands. Maybe these upper "voids" were originally leather.

PS: Speaking of Sarmatian connections, Suhel has posted his own version of the Roxolani helmet on New Products. I suggested he move the cheekpieces to the rear about a 1 1/2 cm, maybe even 2 cm. He plans a scale or chainmail aventail, I think. Nice helmet for the archers in our midst. :grin:

Looks good, although I like yours better :mrgreen: .

"Ribbed" helmets, that is to say a spangenhelm with multiple circimferential bands going around appear to be depicted in Kushan sources, according to one historian, although I have yet to find the original depiction. There are some odd conical helmets on Kushan coins. Although they are not necessarily helmets ...



These rivetted helmets with gaps were probably quite low-class armour.

The leather is a good idea - quite cheap and simple to add on, and adds quite a bit of protection to it. Some of the half-sized plates appear to have holes or rivets in the top edge, perhaps for attaching a hardened leather piece.

The chest - I have no idea! On one hand, they look like scales - but that style of depiction may be used for crude depictions of maille instead, and may have been used as such in other places and eras as well. I personally think it is maille, but it probably wouldn't be hard to change my mind :mrgreen:

It could just as easily be a coat of lamellar or scale, using different sized plates for the chest and abdomen, and scale or lamellar half-chaps (like the Dura ones might be, if they are not crinet pieces).

Indeed, its but agraffito and therefore hard to interpret, and indeed, tyhe artist could have meant both scale as well as mail.

Indeed it could be different sizes of the same thing, or a combination.
[attachment=4336]imagesCA12D1Z8.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=4337]imagesCAO56J7D.jpg[/attachment]

The first image is a 6th Century BC(?) Scythian scale cuirass, and the row of longer scales were allegedly to hold a wide belt. Alanus, were wide belts still used by the Sarmatians at this time? Parthian belts were not particularly wide. Or is that assumption even true?

Similar styles of armour existed further east. This is I think early Goguryeo Korean:



The second one is Turkish or Tatar, probably 15th - 17th Century. Turkish, Iranian, and Indian maille and plate is beautiful. Helmets were even made out of the stuff as well.

I was basing my assumption that it was maille based on similar representations of what is thought to be maille from other places and times.



There's another depiction from Avar times showing scale where it probably represents maille (at least, it's thought), but unfortunately I can't find the image. The maille / scale is forming an aventail, and we are looking at the back of the rider's head. If that rings a bell?

Like I said, it wouldn't be hard to change my mind about it being maille, and I think it may be changing I am now picturing something more akin to the Korean cuirass.

Great discussion by the way, and thanks for your input :-) :-)

[Alanus]

Back to you, Daryush

Wow! That's a lot of ground to cover.
As for belts, my feeling is that both wide and narrow ones were worn. The wide ones, in particular, carried the decorative plates that we all see in the museums, either made from gold or ivory. Not much silver. And these were probably worn by the highest nobles and kings, while the warriors (such as myself) wore narrower belts. (We see this in other IE cultures, like the Celts who had wide kingly belts as symbols of authority.)

Yes, my helmet is a great spangenhelm. But we should remember that Suhel's version will cost ONE TENTH the price, yet it's still functional, and (frankly), handsome. I'm getting one with a scale aventail, or I'll get the aventail and replace the existing chainmail one I'm now wearing. The important thing (and I stress this)-- this is a helmet for archers.

I'm a bit "early." But you and the few Sassanians among us, must have been influenced by the lead Turkic tribes to arrive just that side of the Lavant. Procopius uses two descriptions for the same people, calling them Huns (meaning White Huns)and Ephthalites. Personally, I think this referred to their language, which was probably not Indo-Iranian but Turkic. The Avars were closely related, sometimes called the Juan-juan by the Chinese. And I think the Magyars were a northern branch, neighbors of the Mordwines long enough to adopt a Uralic language, yet coming from? The Ugar plain?

In this new "non-Indo-European" wave, we find added armor elements and clothing that affected the Sogdians and Sassanians beginning early in the 5th century. New ways to wear chainmail. And those conical helmets. Again, we see warriors below noble status wearing leather-topped "half-helmets." The huge aventails, almost like coifs and wrapping around under the chin, were worn by the Chinese back in the 2nd century AD, maybe earlier. So, this, in its true length of influence, can be credited to Serica.

This is quite a change from the Roxolani described by Tacitus, a group of warriors that must have looked like they fell straight out of the Orlat Battle Plaque! :grin:

I have always wondered about the Avar-Magyar admixture, but they probably were half Asian-European in their features. The Russians considered their women beautiful... predecessors of Zhang Zi Zi and Gong Li. :wink:

PS: I married one. Her lineage is Tartar, born near Orenberg... taimen country.

[daryush]

Thanks for the input Alanus mile:

Yes, you're right about the Turkic influence on Eranshahr and Sogdiana (and likely other places too). The conical Sogdian helmet found at Nineveh and depicted at Panjakent; and the lancer relief at Taq-e-Bostan are good indications of how widespread Turkic military technology became. You are forgetting two very important ones - the hourglass quiver, and the (very very controversially dated) stirrup. Backwards facing quivers have existed in Central Asia since before the Sassanians.

Tabari attributes the half-leather helmets to an Iranian tradition and not a Turkic one, although you are correct in that they became very popular in Central Asia as well.

The Orlat Battle Plaque armour has more parallels with what is worn in China than with what is worn in Iran. I can't speak for the Rhoxolani as I know hardly anything about them. But the lamellar sleeves, for example, are seen on the Terracotta chariots and in an embroidered textile from 1st C Mongolia (which also shows the 4-horned saddle). The helmets and the gorgets are very Chinese (not to mention the swords, of course).

The lamellar sleeves of the Orlat armour has been particularly interesting as it would be cool to work out how such a piece would articulate. I am going to start work on a sleeve sometime soon (and probably expand it out into a full coat, for the sake of completeness :mrgreen: ). They may be related to the manica-like arm armour that Central Asian horsemen wore.

[Alanus]

Back to you, Daryush

Ah! So you have also noticed how similar the Orlat Plaque armor is to that worn by the Chinese. The first time I said, "Holy mackerel! There it is!" was while watching the opening scenes of Zhang Yimu's film Hero. Then it showed up again Jackie Chan's The Myth and Little Big Soldier... including disk pommel swords with blued rhomboid hatching. But the killer film with Orlat armor is John Woo's version of the ancient novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the 5-hour long Red Cliff.

Evidently, the Chinese can do what Hollywood can't, and depict rather accurate armor and weapons of the period from 2nd Cent BC to AD 2nd Cent... right down to the red feathers on the helmets. When we consider that the Wusun (later becoming a part of the Alans, as were the Aorsi and Roxolani)were mercenaries for the chinese, we can see the armor's origins-- borrowed by the Qin and Han Dynasties from these steppe tribes.

So, I think that when we talk about the "Indo-Iranian Sarmatian Contribution to the Roman Army," we find it complex: Chinese swords reaching Europe, articulated and scale armor, uniquely new helmet designs, etc. We find the references early-on, in the writings of both Pliny and Tacitus. Each culture influenced another, and we must later include the Turks, in a progression that actually started 3,000 years ago in the Altai... including "modern" horses 15 hands high and a befitting saddle.

It seems odd that I have used movies as references, but they exhibit a fairly accurate detail from surviving early Chinese artwork. :mrgreen:

[MeinPanzer]

Evidently, the Chinese can do what Hollywood can't, and depict rather accurate armor and weapons of the period from 2nd Cent BC to AD 2nd Cent... right down to the red feathers on the helmets. When we consider that the Wusun (later becoming a part of the Alans, as were the Aorsi and Roxolani)were mercenaries for the chinese, we can see the armor's origins-- borrowed by the Qin and Han Dynasties from these steppe tribes.

That reconstruction is of a Koguryo cataphract panoply from Korea, dating to the fifth and sixth centuries AD.

[Alanus]

That reconstruction is of a Koguryo cataphract panoply from Korea, dating to the fifth and sixth centuries AD.

Hello, MeinPanzer! Haven't heard from you in awhile. Hope all is well.

True, the suit of armor pictured above is Korean. I was referring to the similarites between those pictured on the Orlat Plaque and similar ones in Woo's Three Kingdom era film, Red Cliff.

[daryush]

I just found fragments from another piece of armour.



1 is from Toglok Tepe, Late Sasanian, 2 is from Old Nisa, 2nd - 3rd Centuries, 3 is from Qasr-e-Abu Nasr, 5th - 7th Centuries.

Probably the warrior on the Dura fresco may have plates that looked like 1 or 2 covering his abdomen.

The lacing method proposed here would also form an extremely flexible sheet of lamellar. I can't read the text so I don't know whether the lacing was found or was just a best guess by the author.

[starman2012]

The Iazyges were a tribe of "Aryan"-Iranian Sarmatians, conquered by Rome

They were defeated c 175 CE but retained their independence hence weren't conquered in that sense.