Wikipedia lorica segmentata article

[Dan Howard]

But they are not saying anything. Its like showing up to a voting booth and then deliberately posting an invalid vote. Stay home. Have some quality family time ;-) )

[Tarbicus]

True. But they're already at the polling booth to see how things are going. May as well stick a ballot in the box; wasted journey otherwise.

[Crispvs]

Not having a definite opinion either way does not mean that a person cannot have a valid contribution to make. For what it's worth, I voted for the third option.

Crispvs

[Salvianus]

Not having a definite opinion either way does not mean that a person cannot have a valid contribution to make.

Hear, hear, it gives an indication of the polarity of opinion or whether the topic is interesting but imponderable, just as putting 'none of the above' on a ballot paper has meaning (if, arguably, little effect)

[Marcus Julius]

That makes hamata 6.33 times longer to put together than segmentata. That's more than 6 times the personnel to be paid, maintained, whichever, depending on if they were slaves or freemen.

I'll have to second this. I haven't made actual Hamata. However, I have done two shirts of butted mail, and each of them took me significantly longer than my first attempt at seg. Even that was only the assembly of the mail, as I got the rings coiled and cut from friend. Whereas the Seg project started with just sheets of material.

Another consideration: whether the sheets were segmentata strip sized, or larger. Consider the amount of waste material from the punched rings. Certainly, it could be recycled, but in the overall cost it's still overhead that you don't have from straight strips like the seg.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

I think making a hamata is harder. Now it's easier than in antiquity: we go to the hardware store and buy some iron wire or even some iron rings.

But roman have to make the wire form iron! I have talked with some jewelry makers and it's a very hard work. Basically, consist in force the iron to pass on holes increasingly small.

The proces then it's the same that now, with the difference that almost all the roman hamata were riveted, and now we made it butted.

[Eleatic Guest]

If you wanna make Wikipedia to make sense, post useful links at the bottom. For example to this discussion or at the swordforum.

Anyone who has had some experience with Wikipediaism will go for the links first, and take the article itself not more than a support act. But that is, of course, only possible when the links give the impression to be more written more competently.

...otherwise....GOOD LUCK!

[Ebusitanus]

I was shocked on how bad the hamata section was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorica_hamata

[Eleatic Guest]

Why dont you create one in Spanish?

When you are the first, others might be more hesitant to start fruitless edit wars.

And do not forget to acticate the watch list.

[avlvs arrivs diogenes]

I'm tuning in late here. Great thread; wonderful comments by Dr. Bishop!

So, Martin takes 40 hours to make a seg; Legio VI Victrix quote around 15-20 hours to make a Newstead seg. Average of, let's say, 30 hours.

Regarding the above quote, I don't know who in Leg VI informed you that a Newstead only takes 15-20 hours. I sure hope that is not on our website somewhere! AFter having produced at least five Newsteads myself and supervised several others, the lowest I've ever gotten down to is 40 hours - and that's with the brass hinges and furniture having been pre-cut by a water jet firm. When I was doing the furniture by hand, it was more like 60 hours!

Corbridges can be done a bit quicker, since the relatively thin plates of the upper unit can be shaped by hand and do not need to be hot forged like those of the Newstead (mid-collar plate about 1.7 mm thick). So, your estimate of 30 hours for an average segmentata might be fair, but a bit on the low side for weekend hobbyists like us. For experienced Roman craftsmen, maybe.

All my best and Happy New Year to all!

Arik

[jkaler48]

Someone experienced in ancient blacksmithing need to be consulted here
to determine labor "costs" for making the punched rings, wire and rivets starting materials for a hamata versus the sheet iron, sheet brass and small iron and brass pieces for a segmentata. Those labor and material "costs" could be very different than the finished materials point that we typically start with in a modern reconstruction. To make either type of Armor
using only roman methods and material production techniques from mining the raw ore hides etc would be a major historical research and reconstruction effort worthy of a book and even a history channel miniseries.
Anyone have a year or two and some grant money available? Also some "carbon credits" for the big pile of wood that would have to be burned might be needed.