Nice picture. Although it looks like Scythius' got a busted shoulder guard on his segmentata..<br>
And The Hook: I was looking for the humpteenth time at the famous Alba Julia sculpture --very damaged-- trying to figure out whether it's a segmentata with scale shoulder guards, or a segmentata with a scale hood.<br>
I still don't know and I still try to sketch a decent reconstruction of that guy.<br>
But anyways, looking at that sculpture like that, I finally noticed something.<br>
First: the sword. Our man wears his on the left and it looks pretty much like a spatha with a pelta style chape. Late IInd early IIIrd C.AD.<br>
Then I finally spotted the oh so very obvious: <span style="text-decoration:underline">the spatha chape sticks out below the lower part of the shield.</span><br>
If our man held his shield by the hand grip, there is no way that scabbard chape could stick out under it, whether it's a big or a small rectangular scutum. The shield would go down to mid-calf level and would completely hide the sword.<br>
So I remembered this recently discovered hook on the upper gridle of a segmentata and the interesting conversation we had with Mike Bishop and others about what that hook was there for. The general idea was that it was some sort of carrying device for the shield. That is besides its obvious use, which is to rip open the underarm of the wearer if he isn't careful..<br>
I think that we may see the use of that hook of the Alba Julia sculpture. A strap attached to the scutum and tied to the segmentata hook would put the shield exactly where it is in the sculpture, that is with the lower part slighlty above knee level, showing the lower end of the sword and the upper part a bit above shoulder level. A rough mesure I just took on me --I am 173 centimeters tall/67,5 inches-- would put the shield's height at something like 85 centimeters/33,2 inches.<br>
A last note: as far as I know there are two countries in the world that still stubbornely do not use metric: the United State and Malaysia..<br>
So, no, I don't know how many feet there are in 67,5 inches. It's probably something like 2/5ths of 8/7ths or something.<br>
I know however that 173 centimeters make 1,73 meter and that is simple.<br>
See what I mean?<br>
Just in case, there are very good inches/centimeters converters on the net, and well, you know, majority rules OK.. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://b30.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=antoninuslucretius@romanarmytalk>Antoninus Lucretius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://lucretius.homestead.com/files/Cesar_triste.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 4/25/04 1:13 pm<br></i>
