04-05-2006, 03:10 PM
At the risk of sidetracking the course of this interesting debate, Luca's new thread about rectangular shields has turned up an illustration of the relief I was referring to in the first post on this one, all that time ago (!) - turns out it's from Urso/Osuna. The drawing is, I think, not too accurate, and some of the detail is missing, particularly of the diagonals on the right-hand figure's torso armour (the drawing is in reverse, incidentally, to the photo of the relief in the Osprey book), and as a result the diagonals on the 'skirt' of the figure rather resemble long slanting pterugues. The original shows this diagonal scoring right up the exposed flank of the torso, however, with a 'seam' down the side beneath the arm where the diagonals meet in a V before running up the back. Some odd detail around the neck and sleeve as well. The other figure is clarly wearing mail, but I do not believe these diagonal lines represent scale armour - could be some sort of Spanish corselet-type thing, but it certainly looks to me like a quilted garment of some description...
The original is, as in Luca's post, here
- Nathan
The original is, as in Luca's post, here
- Nathan
Nathan Ross