Battle of Cunaxa Illustration

[geala]

What's about the armour of the Lykian1 warrior? It seems to consist of a piece for throat and shoulders and a skirt below the waist, the rest of the upper body seems to be naked. Or?

The lower half of the shield seems to have short extensions (feathers?), really strange.

[Laran]

Edit: In case it helps in locating a hard copy of the photos, could you give us the page numbers of all those photos where they aren't obvious? I see they come from Vol. 89 of Arkeo-Atlas, published in 2007.

Actually it's issue 6, 2007. As for page numbers:

- General view of the sarcophagus of the Persian (by the way, it's called Çan Sarcophagus) - page 89
- Detail with battle scene of the sarcophagus - page 84
- Tatarli tumulus north wall - page 79
- Detail with Immortals - page 80
- Funeral panel drawing - pages 80-81
- Battle with Scythians drawing - page 82
- Lykian warrior stele - page 68
- Lykian warrior painting from Kizilbel tumulus - page 69

Regards

[Laran]

What's about the armour of the Lykian1 warrior? It seems to consist of a piece for throat and shoulders and a skirt below the waist, the rest of the upper body seems to be naked. Or?

The lower half of the shield seems to have short extensions (feathers?), really strange.

His breastplate looks like an ordinary linothorax.
In Nick Sekunda's book on Persian army, there's a reconstruction of this warrior. According to him, this double-headed spear might be an example of 'spears of Lycian manufacture' mentioned by Herodotus.

[Laran]

I'd be very greatful if you can find any other publication or get more images online.

Sean, I managed to find something.

An article with details.
http://www.uc.edu/news/sarco.htm

I believe the sarcophagus was published in 'Studia Troica' 11 (2001). Here you can find a reference to the article about it. (on page 11)
http://www.achemenet.com/ressources/sou ... an.SHS.pdf
Hope it helps.

Best regards.

[Sean Manning]

Thanks Laran. Your information has been very helpful. I managed to get good colour printouts made of those images you supplied at a local office supply store.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Interesting article.So,this man was probably injured in his first battle?He died in his 20s,and several years after his injury to the left side...
Assuming he was a cavalry man and was so heavily injured in his left side,we can suppose he was not carrying a shield :lol:
It's fascinating how you can re-construct the past of a man by his injuries and,his age,status and way of dying!
Khaire
Giannis

[Zenodoros]

That one relief looks like a pylos helmet with a crest!! Never seen that before! Almost makes me for give my ancestors for using it!!!!!!! hock:

There are more crested pilos helmets here!

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Also
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/472508743/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/4412432468 ... otostream/
Not the classical greek pilos,it's etruscan, but it is a pilos possibly worn by italian hoplites.
Khaire
Giannis

[Paullus Scipio]

Hi Giannis !
Liked the photos you posted !
The helmet type is usually called 'Negau' as you doubtless will have seen, and is peculiar to the Etruscans. It is characterised by its heavy rim and the medial ridge, and is not purely conical like the Pilos.
Like the Pilos, they too can often be crested.
An earlier, less developed Etruscan 'conical pot' helmet is often illustrated - a trophy taken by the Greeks from the Etruscans at the naval battle of Cumae and dedicated at Olympia ( I think).

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

And if I remember well,some times had high crest,too (so popular to Etruscans and Italian Greeks)
Paul,maybe the wrong thread,but lets bring again the crest issue in greek helmets.
The Italians were generally more wealthy than native Greeks,and this explains why there is so much frequency in crested helmets from Italy.
What about the corinthian helmets though?Some times they seem not to have any indication of crest holder,however there are indeed many times tiny wholes,some times only one tiny whole just on the top of the helmet.Some times there are indications of crest only in the back and one major reason I think why we can't destinguish when a helmet had crest or not in the first glance,is that there seem to co-exist so many ways of attachment. It seems as if each craftsman had his own patent!
I may seem to push things a bit to far, but I'm just tired of atributing EVERY unexplained (yet) matter to artistic lisense.
Khaire
Giannis

[hoplite14gr]

Yannis may I suggest this to go to the "Helmets" thread?
Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

...or we can start a new one on the subject of Greek helmet crests ?

[geala]

What's about the armour of the Lykian1 warrior? It seems to consist of a piece for throat and shoulders and a skirt below the waist, the rest of the upper body seems to be naked. Or?

The lower half of the shield seems to have short extensions (feathers?), really strange.

His breastplate looks like an ordinary linothorax.
...

I don't think so. When you enlarge the picture you will see no armour on the visible side of the warriors breast and belly. It has just the same colour as his arms and no visible rims or lines to indicate an arm hole. And the upper defense looks not like the shoulder flaps of a linothorax but similar to Egyptian shoulder/throat armours.

[Duncan Head]

Compare with the now lost stele of Lykian warrior from Konya below. He is also armed with sickle sword and double-headed spear.

I would recommend not putting too much reliance on details of this one. There was an article in Slingshot a few years ago from someone who's seen the original stele - which apparently isn't lost at all, but is in the sculpture-garden of Konya museum, IIRC - and several details of the 19th-century drawing Laran reproduces did not appear to be accurate, including the two-headed spear, the shield-blazon, and the construction of the armour.

(Of course it's possible that what's in Konya is another stele, same pose and merely very similar equipment, but it seems unlikely!)

[Duncan Head]

(A slight side-note Kai: if you look at the Greek of Xenophon's description of the enemy line at Cunaxa, you will find that Tissaphernes' men wore "bright body-armour" rather than the common English translation of "white cuirasses." The adjective can mean "white", but "bright" or "shining" is the core meaning and would make just as much sense in context).

But compare with what Plutarch says in his Life of Artaxerxes:

(In the meantime, some wretched, poverty-stricken Caunians, who in some pitiful employment as camp followers had accompanied the king's army, by chance joined these attendants of Cyrus, supposing them to be of their own party. But when, after a while, they made out that their coats over their breastplates were red, whereas all the king's people wore white ones, they knew that they were enemies.

This makes it more likely that what Xenophon saw and described was indeed Tissaphernes' men wearing white, whether white cuirasses or white tunics over them.