06-04-2007, 09:01 AM
Quote:So, Paul, an essentially leather spolades also produces what we see on the pottery.........interesting !!
I don't think we can say that; the leather core is only one third of the material. Having worked it (and a lot of other leather, in the past) I'm certain it wouldn't behave in this way, without the linen re-inforcement, even if it were the full thickness of the armour. Look at the way a two-foot-wide sheet of soling leather behaves. Further, if you wear leather, it quickly conforms to your shape and stays in it when released, moulded by damp heat.
As to advising Archimedes, I don't see that there's much more I can tell him. He has to overcome the dilemma you mentioned - paucity of evidence and division among those who might advise him - by making his own decision. However you make a re-construction, someone will always be able to carp at you about something. Personally, I don't aspire to being an Experimental Archaeologist and I'm not going to burden myself with the trouble and expense of using hand-made linen or home-made glue, for example. I'm not building something for historians and archaeologists to study, but something for use. It will be about the right weight, made from the right material and using a construction method which was possible in its day. If anyone wants to count the threads or debate the pattern of the weft, they should find an EA who's made one or, better still, construct their own - I look forward to seeing it in X years' time!
One thing that might help is this: I find the black leather trim I used, runs and stains the body of my linothorax and my chiton. Other people don't seem to have this problem - it could be that their trim is more colour-fast.
I would recommend thinking very carefully about trim and the colour thereof. Equally, I have little idea of how colour-fast natural dyes are, but I would play safe and only face the armour with coloured linen, leaving the rest natural. This will also save time and effort.
