06-28-2013, 12:48 PM
I've just started to read it today (June 28), and it looks very interesting and valuable.
Two reservations: one is minor, in that I wish they hadn't perpetuated the use of linothorax as a noun: as far as I can see whenever the word is used it is an adjective meaning "linen-corseleted", and any Greek writer who simply wants to say "a linen cuirass" used "linos thorax" or "thorax lineos" or some such. But I imagine this is a forlorn hope since the modern usage seems well-established.
Second, it's a pity that the authors seemed unaware (judging from their bibliography) of Hero Granger Taylor's article "Fragments of linen from Masada, Israel - possible remnants of pteryges" in Wearing the Cloak (ed. M-L Nosch 2012), although they were able to use Margarita Gleba's article on Etruscan linen cuirasses from the same volume. Presumably the Nosch volume didn't appear in time to be used. Granger Taylor discusses what may be the only surviving pieces of ancient linen armour - some half-burned fragments from Masada that she thinks may be pteryges, and as comparison the Dura linen "greave lining" which she interprets as a greave itself, not a lining. I'd have been very interested to see what the authors of Reconstructing... made of her analysis, and whether it would have affected their decision to go for glued reconstructions - the Masada and Dura examples don't seem to be glued.
Two reservations: one is minor, in that I wish they hadn't perpetuated the use of linothorax as a noun: as far as I can see whenever the word is used it is an adjective meaning "linen-corseleted", and any Greek writer who simply wants to say "a linen cuirass" used "linos thorax" or "thorax lineos" or some such. But I imagine this is a forlorn hope since the modern usage seems well-established.
Second, it's a pity that the authors seemed unaware (judging from their bibliography) of Hero Granger Taylor's article "Fragments of linen from Masada, Israel - possible remnants of pteryges" in Wearing the Cloak (ed. M-L Nosch 2012), although they were able to use Margarita Gleba's article on Etruscan linen cuirasses from the same volume. Presumably the Nosch volume didn't appear in time to be used. Granger Taylor discusses what may be the only surviving pieces of ancient linen armour - some half-burned fragments from Masada that she thinks may be pteryges, and as comparison the Dura linen "greave lining" which she interprets as a greave itself, not a lining. I'd have been very interested to see what the authors of Reconstructing... made of her analysis, and whether it would have affected their decision to go for glued reconstructions - the Masada and Dura examples don't seem to be glued.
cheers,
Duncan
Duncan
