Greek Helmet/ armour database

[rocktupac]

So how can you tell from a drawing whether the helmet is hard or soft? You need the mystical powers of D'Amato to do that Why can't asymetry simply mean that the carver was sloppy, or that he was trying something with perspective that didn't work properly, or that the helmet really was asymetrical?

I agree. It is nearly impossible to determine any materials used from a painting or sculpture when questionable.

In mainland greece,white colour has been used very rarely comparatively,and is used either to indicate female skin, white horses, white tube and yoke cuirasses, and other than that, very few other details like some decorative dots or shield designs.

While white may have been used comparatively less, it still appears on a greater number of objects than you list. Without even really looking for white objects I came across shields, greaves, helmets, helmet crests, men's beards, and a mix of other various objects (as you also note) all in white. The examples ranged in date but were, for the most part, all dated to the 5th century. Not trying to stir the pot :wink:

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Of course you can't determine the matterial. If you could,now we would know what the t&y was made of with great certainty. You can often determine stiffness though. Especially when you have two matterials with great difference in stiffness to pick from.

My main point about the white colour's usage was that it was used rarely,and especially when the object they painted was white in reality. Thus white hair and painted shields. And my arguement is that although white colour cannot be conclusive,it shouldn't be entirely dismissed,especially when used for a pilos on a greek style vase.

One more point for the spartan piloi being of felt is their name itself. It's been believed that the name "pilos" was borrowed from the felt hat and was used for the metal version too. It would be a "cap out of metal". However,although modern lexicons translate "pilos" as hat/cap, the ancient meaning was specifically of a felt cap. "Pilema" is felt, from the verb "pilo"-to concentrate. The different kinds of "piloi" like the laconian and the boeotian were made of felt, and when a cap was made of other matterial this was indicated in their name, like "kyne"-cap made of dog skin.
The metal cap derived from the laconian pilos was reffered to with a different name by the Macedonians. A completely greek name: "konos". What is our evidence that in the late fifth century the metal conical hemet wasn't called "konos" and that the word "pilos" was used for both?
No evidence,as there is no evidence that the hoplites (at least some of them) weren't entering battle without armour other than their shield.

Last,i would like to point out the lack of a great number of actual finds comparable with the frequency of the appearance of the helmet in artistic representations. The pilos supposedly became the most popular helmet for quite some time after the last quarter of the 5th century,and at times that armies grew dramatically compared to previous eras. Why the number of piloi is so small compared to ,say, corinthian helmets of the 6th century? There are many examples,yes,but the majority of them come from italy,where anyway the helmets more often are shown with crests,feathers etc,and even painted with yellow colour.

So even debatable depictions of the cap in art can have more or less chances of representing some specific matterial and are worthy to be discussed here.
Khaire
Giannis

[PMBardunias]

Has anyone ever tested a thick felt (like the horse armor), padded leather or textile helmet? There certainly are examples from other cultures.

[richard robinson]

I know its hard not to keep on a discussion gents but lets focus on actual greek armour artefacts etc..please??:roll:
Has any more been learnt about the apparent similar finds of the "so called" philip of macedon/ vergina curass??

(on felt)
felt rolls about helmets have been known to make metal swords bounce off
felt coats were reported to absorb/ deflect arrows during the crusader era
I knew a man who success fully made a felt scale avenatil (boiled in wax)
I have known some to cheat with T&Y & bronze age style greaves by using glue impregnated felt in the core.

i also have a friend manufacturing thick felt conicalish hats if any are interested
regards
Richard

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

So.... where is the database ?

and secondly, about the painting in the last AWM, showing Spartans almost all using Piloi as helmets and wearing Linothoraxes, did anyone spot that the king who got carried away from the field of battle had a moustache ? ? That is not really Spartan, is it... :mrgreen:

M.VIB.M.

[Peter Raftos]

Stumbled across Joe Piela's blog. Raising a Corinthian from a single sheet:
Forging-a-One-Piece-Bronze-Corinthian-Helmet

[joeandmich]

Stumbled across Joe Piela's blog. Raising a Corinthian from a single sheet:
Forging-a-One-Piece-Bronze-Corinthian-Helmet

Very cool

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

And guess to whom this helmet belongs...yes, it is Christian Cameron's new helmet.
Come see it in Marathon this September :-D
Khairete
Giannis

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Not strictly Greek , but a beautiful helmet someone posted on FB today.
Does anyone know where it is displayed and where it was found?
I am waiting on an answer from the poster but as usual, impatience gets the better of me....
I think it is a phrygian... but is that just a classifcation or style...Thracian?

[Ghostmojo]

I think the Skiritai wore the felt version of the Pilos as opposed to the metal one of their Lakedaimonian comrades. They were in a sense 'light' hoplites fighting somewhat akin to hamippoi on occasion, but at other times more like standard hoplites. They also operated as scouts and seemed to be a very flexible unit.

[Theodosius the Great]

Avete,

Here's a helmet in a Romanian museum: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mdNj3m0yPOg/Td...HELMET.jpg

Is this the same helmet we see on many of the Sidon stelae?

~Theo

[Decebalus]

The helmet Caesar posted comes from Pletena, mun. Satovča, district Blagoevgrad in Bulgaria. It is on display in Sofia, Museum of National History Inv.-nr. 37325.
It is made of bronze with applications of silver and copper.
Inside the helmet have been found traces of a felt cap.
It has ancient repairs, the lower ends of the cheekpieces have been cut away.
The height is (without cheekpieces) 27,5 cm, total 41,5 cm. Diameter is 24 cm.
It is dated to the first half of the 4th Century BC.
For the type it belongs to the group of Phrygian/Chalcidian helmets because the lower part of the helmet bears strong similarities to the Chalkidian type (ridges in the calotte, eye and ear cutouts, noseguard) whereas the "true" phrygian helmets (also called Thracian by some scholars) have a fully modelled krobulos in one or up to three parts and a brimmed front.
The helmet is published in:
Fol, V.: Le loup en Thrace Hyperboréene, in: I Congreso de Mitología mediterránea. La Razón del Mito. Terrassa 1, 2 y 3 de Julio de 1998. Universidad nacional de educación a distancia, Madrid 2000
Webber, Ch.: The Thracians, Men-at-Arms 360, Oxford 2001, fig. p. 11
Dimitrova, D.: Krieger und Bewaffnung, in: Die Thraker. Das goldene Reich des Orpheus, Ausstellungskatalog Bonn 2004, 127ff. Abb. 5; 294f. Kat.-Nr. 253 Abb.

Greets

[joeandmich]

So whatever happened to the database? I bet if it was a samurai database there would be pages of pictures by now not just pages of discourse.

Bring on the pictures guys!!!

[Nikanor]

Not strictly Greek , but a beautiful helmet someone posted on FB today.
Does anyone know where it is displayed and where it was found?
I am waiting on an answer from the poster but as usual, impatience gets the better of me....
I think it is a phrygian... but is that just a classifcation or style...Thracian?

Phrygians were largely considered in antiquity to be of "Thraecian stock" and that various myths indicate a place of origin in what is today eastern Macedonia (in modern Greek state to avoid confusion with other innovations), said to have emigrated in the era prior to the Trojan war (in Iliad we find them already in deep Minor Asia). Interestingly, after more than 1000 years after their migration in deeper Minor Asia where they intermingled more with the local Luwo-lydian stock Minor Asians for most of the timeframe than with coastal Greeks, they possessed a language that is formally classified as the closest known language to Greek making it a Helleno-Phrygian family and this makes no reference to loan-words but the essence of the language (they retained archaisms found in Linear-B but lost in Greek mainland and Ionian dialects)

Speaking of Phrygian or Thraecian can be a point to discuss then. For me for example, if you want to make a Phrygian cap, take a long Pilow, wear it under your helmet stuffed and there you are. Or else, Myceneans (like many others) did have already curved crests worn in both directions - so why Thraecian or Phrygian? Reminds me of the "Illyrian" helment that was never Illyrian which still troubles so many thousands of people. Names can be misleading. Fashions came and went. We call lorica segmentata (a term that Romans never used I think) an armor that is actually a downsized iron evolution of the Dendra armor.

However if I am to stick to titles, this beautiful helmet (where it comes from so well preserved - if not a reconstruction, hope not though?) looks like an ornate Attic-thraecian cross.

[KrimzonKnight]

samurai are over rated.