Macedonian Phalanx Illustration

[drsrob]

I always assumed that the hemithorax was the often much shorter form of linothorax that can be seen in some iconographic sources. It seems very questionable that it would only cover the front, unless it had metal plating in the front but not in the back or something like that.

I agree.

According to Sekunda the purple colours were faded almost to gray. Some might have been gray.

The analysis of the paint while it was still very well preserved by Reinach and Hamdy-Bey showed that it was purple.

On the sarcophagus the helmets are painted blue. They, however were of bronze rather then iron.

How do you know they were of bronze? They have some bronze detailing (in yellow), but you can't prove that they were bronze.

Well, until a learned of Phillip's helmet I did not know of a single Greek iron helmet. But that helmets were painted is accepted wisdom AFAIK.

And some were painted red. Therefore the blue was probably meant to indicate paint as well.

The near-contemporary Aghios Athanasios paintings show weapons and armour painted blue, including spearheads. Blue was also used to represent iron in other sources since the time of the Assyrians. Unless you think that they painted their spearheads, it seems that the helmets on the Alexander sarcophagus were iron.

I know my idea is goes against accepted notions. I just looked at the cuirasses on the Sarcophagus and compared them with Alexander's armour on the mosaic and I thought: What if the light purple represents iron and the light yellow linen. Then these two armours would be nearly identical. The sarcophagus even has the same red edging as the painting.