Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor - New Book

[Paullus Scipio]

When it is based on nothing more than a supposition or wild guess, it is certainly not reasonable. I have already told you my statement was tongue-in-cheek irony, but you falsely believe otherwise (shrug). Very few who opine on the subject are well informed. We have had almost 30 years since Connolly's unevidenced assertion, and ALL the evidence that has come to light in that time favours leather over linen, so I would certainly NOT be "100% certain" that evidence of linen impregnated with glue (ancient fibreglass? LOL!) will emerge. Far more likely that more evidence for leather will emerge in Macedon etc. And is that really a good argument - that while evidence for glued linen doesn't exist now, it MIGHT emerge in the never-never of the future?
With regard to those you mention above, such an argument is called an ‘argument from authority’, which is a logical fallacy. Of those you refer to, Connolly wrote (“Greek Armies”1977 p.38 and “Greece and Rome at War” 1981p.58) “A linen cuirass was made of many layers of linen glued together to form a stiff shirt, about half a centimetre thick” without however offering any evidence at all for this idea, then or after until his death. The only other one to actually study the Tube-and-Yoke corselet was Jarva, and as you note he favours leather.
Creon wrote:
"When you dismiss even the idea of the Greeks using linen for body armor because no source you are aware of supports the idea you seem to say there is no need for further research into what is depicted not on hundreds, but on thousands of pieces of intact and fragments of pottery."
First, I don't dismiss the idea of 'linen' armour - provided some credible evidence for its existence is produced. Further research may well produce surprises, if the past is anything to go by. But further research based on pure speculation is pointless. The only thing all those depictions on pottery, painted friezes and statuary proves is that Tube-and-Yoke corselets existed without shedding any light whatever on what they were made of - as we have seen, Philip II's and others were made of iron!


Meanwhile, two questions for you:
*In Alexander's time we may conservatively estimate that there were over 100,000 hoplites and phalangites in Greece/Macedon. Each corselet needed many metres of linen - so millions of metres of very expensive linen needed. Where did it come from and how was it paid for ?
* Despite modern experiments, no ancient glue can be made to work successfully, as far as I know, so what was the 'glue' you claim was used ? ( Aldrete et al reckoned  'rabbit' glue, which is variously reported as being bought in an art store, or that they made it themselves )