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Leather Armor? (NO HOLDS BARRED!!)
Quote:Exactly what is the evidence to show that femenalia were made from leather, as is commonly claimed? Why would wool not be more likely?

Sorry if this question is somewhat OT.

Crispvs

Crispvs,

Wouldn't wool be slippery on a leather saddle, and prone to wearing out quickly?
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."


a.k.a. Paul M.
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Hi Crispus

We have had this discussion on the cavalry thread with Robert (not Vortigern) from the Netherlands. Like you I have always thought wool more likely for bracae but Robert was convinced there was some evidence for leather bracae but was not sure what the source was. After some digging, in books of course, I came across a reference to a find from the....... Netherlands. It should be on that thread. Of course the existence of leather bracae does not prove that the Roman cavalry used them. As you know the E.S.G. riders have used wool bracae for years but other modern riders prefer leather. Some Romans may have sewn leather insides to their wool bracae as was a common practice in other periods, who knows?
Graham
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.

"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.

"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
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Thanks Graham.

Crispvs
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

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Hi Paul Crispus

This was my last message to Robert but I have not heard anything since.

Quote:......the remains found at Valkenburg! There is apparently an article or report by Hoevenburg 1993 which might shed more light on this. If you can get hold of a copy I would be grateful if you could let me have some details.

Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.

"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.

"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
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Quote: ...There is no contradiction at all. Not in all but in many of the sculptural examples you can clearly see the evidence of a muscled shape. Even some that are completely supple and draped in halves have lines delineating muscles. The artist is clearly attempting to represent the musculata. Some many be subarmalis but then we are back to the "Why is the emperor showing himself in his underwear?" problems again.

Quote:Is something that is as foldable as a sheet of canvas going to maintain a "muscular" shape? Or are we dealing with else, strong enough for pteruges to hang from, but otherwise insubstantial?

Again, both, depending on the individual example. I am arguing against generalities which are being abundantly thrown about.

Quote:Any leather thin enough to drape like some of the sculptural examples shown has no defensive value.

Put on a leather glove, then put it against a belt sander. Now try the same experiment with your bare hand. I think you will find a difference. Punctures are different of course, and of more primary concern, but they are not the only concern. The most immediate concern is reliable durable gear. Leather fits that category, otherwise braccae would not have been used. We can argue about comparative worth, but we can't argue about possible use, especially when leather has been a vital component of human dress since we started wearing clothes.

Quote: It is as much "armour" as a pith helmet was to the British army, or a pickelhaube to the Kaiser's troops.

or a gorget, or bowman's glove, or any number of things which have always traditionally been thought of as armor, whether formal, ceremonial, parade or otherwise, no mater how well they resist an arrow from 50 paces. Modern semantics however have no bearing on evidence.

I am concerned about whose modern semantics should be tested. If you take a thin leather glove (i.e. leather that will drape flat when folded), and swing a knife at a hand in said glove, it isn't going to protect much of anything. And, if I may say so, a knife test is much more akin to the stresses armour faces than a sander - which was not a common weapon in ancient times.

Quote:Under this standard we could invent any stress test and disallow any armor we choosed. I honestly don't care what modern standard you want to apply. What I care about is what the evidence shows. It shows rigid, semi-rigid, flexible and utterly supple materials with embossed features. Leather is the most likely candidate for at least the latter three out of four of those categories and perhaps the first as well.

It might well have been the crappiest armor in the history of mankind. So what? What we should do is look at the evidence and argue what is most likely based on the evidence, acknowledging full well the limitations of sculpture, but in the end, evidence should come BEFORE conclusions.

Your method is exactly the reverse. Leather armor is crappy, therefore, the Romans did not use leather armor.

Ok, how do explain the evidence? You can't, so then we get to semantical dodges. "Oh well that isn't REAL armor"

Please tell me why I should accept your opinion of what "REAL" armor is over the evidence of roman sculpture.

Consider the reverse - "leather is protective, no matter how poorly. Ergo, any article of clothing made of leather is armour". That is, I would submit, absurd.

By the way, I never said all leather is crappy; I said that leather that is thin enough and flexible enough to drape like cloth is not likely to make good protection - and anyone would, I think, agree that the protective value of 1 oz leather is not the same as 14 oz leather. The same is true of metal - metal can be protective, but a layer of gold leaf does not have the same protective value as 2 mm of steel; one may be armour and the other is not.
Felix Wang
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Quote:Travis, please bear with me here (no pun intended :lol: ),

Travis:2tfadmj7 Wrote:The primaporta is an isolate, it's the only one that looks like it that we know of.

But, can't the same be said of these nude Pius statues ? They both look like they belong to a "heroic" genre rather than the typical triumphal types.

[Image: bergamaa.jpg][Image: antpiusa.jpg]

Are these not also isolates ? If they are, then why should leather be perceived as being the dominant form of this armor ?

There must be something more that has pushed you more firmly into the leather camp. Just wondering what it is :?

I realize this is going back a ways, but please bear with me. The two images which Theodosius showed both show a nude Pius with something next to him, but those "somethings" are not equivalent, and no one seems to have commented on the differences.

The garment in the left hand sculpture clearly does show some molding of muscles. It is also seemingly only semi-rigid/semi-flexible, since the molding maintains its shape when draped over the underlying support. I would agree this is unlikely to be metal, and the material might have sufficient thickness and stiffness to have protective value. However, there is a curious gaping hole or slot running across the middle of this garment. What is that? Does is make the garment less useful as a defense?

Now, the garment in the right hand statue is quite a different beast. It drapes and lies quite flat and flaccid. This is made of some very flexible and very soft and rather thin material; my winter overcoat is thicker and less pliable than this garment. A modern leather jacket might be equally pliable, or less so. I do not understand how this garment is likely to have any defensive value worth mentioning.
Felix Wang
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Quote:However, there is a curious gaping hole or slot running across the middle of this garment. What is that? Does is make the garment less useful as a defense?
That's the neck hole, the upper part of the garment/armour drooped towards us.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
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Quote:Consider the reverse - "leather is protective, no matter how poorly. Ergo, any article of clothing made of leather is armour". That is, I would submit, absurd.

It would be if I said that. I never did. Rather the item is clearly armor as indicated by 500+ years of visual tradition. The nature of those depictions suggest leather. That is all. Neither do I think a boot is a piece of armor, because it is made of leather. Rather I see armor that is made of a material that can not be explained, except as leather.

When it comes to the value of leather armor I couldn't care less. I have no dog in this fight. I am only following the evidence. Romans made armor out of leather, or else the artwork is totally untrustworthy.
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Quote:
Felix:jlnf8m7y Wrote:However, there is a curious gaping hole or slot running across the middle of this garment. What is that? Does is make the garment less useful as a defense?
That's the neck hole, the upper part of the garment/armour drooped towards us.

Of course! :oops: Thank you!

That accords with the rest of my impression - this is a distinctly rigid, although foldable, structure, much different from the other Pius statue.
Felix Wang
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Quote: ... Rather the item is clearly armor as indicated by 500+ years of visual tradition. The nature of those depictions suggest leather. That is all. Neither do I think a boot is a piece of armor, because it is made of leather. Rather I see armor that is made of a material that can not be explained, except as leather.

When it comes to the value of leather armor I couldn't care less. I have no dog in this fight. I am only following the evidence. Romans made armor out of leather, or else the artwork is totally untrustworthy.

That is a very useful clarification. If I may rephrase it, it seems that you are saying that the soft "musuclata" is armour because it is the size and shape of armour, regardless of construction/material.

This leads to some interesting questions. There are cases where "armour" was made which lacked consituents which would give it serious defensive value, such as in the Qing dynasty in China, where officers' court "armour" was shaped like armour, but made of relatively flimsy fabric and pretty little rivets. There are also the cases of late Renaissance armour which imitates civilian fashions in clothing, but of steel. There, the material endows the structure with protective value, but the construction (i.e. lack of smooth, glancing surfaces) guarantees the defensive value is less than other, less elaborate steel suits. Are these armour because they are steel, or clothes because they look like clothes?
Felix Wang
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