Padded Armour

[tlclark]

Remember that the shoulder pteruges should be in avantail form otherwise, when worn on, they'll all converge.

Actually, I think they SHOULD converge.

When I look at the statuary, they are often overlapping and bound up on each other.

Check this out:

http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... det18a.jpg

The pteruges are all a jumble. This is the norm, only by the Antonine period do they start laying down in nice neat rows, and that's the same time period the side seams start to disappear, so it's much harder to get at what's real, and what's style.

I think that the pteruges are cut parallel and that the armhole opening of the lorica cinches the pteruges together near their base forcing them into a cone-like shape. It makes them very dense and overlapping.

I know most don't make their shoulder pteruges this way, but that's because I think they are using far too few pteruges - only 6-12 per shoulder. Just counting them in the primaporta example above there are easily 30-40 pteruges per shoulder! This is by no means atypical. Kilts of pteruges have about 60-80 and shoulders have about 20-40 EACH SHOULDER. Part of this is a matter of scale. I measured some pteruges on the statues as best as I could using my finger as a reference. On the statuary, the pteruges are about 1 3/4 - 2 1/2" wide. That's about the size most re-enactors make them, that's about 6-10 pteruges across the front of an average sized man, with 6-10 more across the back. When you count the pteruges on the statuary it is clearly more.

The difference is scale. The statuary is larger than life size, by about 10-30% at times. That means that the real pteruges should be scaled down to actual human dimensions, making pteruges about 1 - 1 1/2" wide. At that side, it's easy to get about 18 to 20 across the front. My pattern has 20 across the kilt and 14 for each arm. Doubled that will make 28 for each shoulder and 80 total for the kilt. That seems like a lot, but I think it's what we are seeing. The shoulder pteruges on my pattern are 1" each, and the kilt ones are 1 1/4".

When you have that many, they don't overlapp as easily and there are enough to force them into the right shape and it "looks" right. I did this with heavy construction paper just to see, but only a full scale model will prove me right or wrong.

So it's a risk, as I know the fan-shaped works, but I am going to cut them parallel and see what happens.

Wish me luck!

Travis