[Jean Henri Chandler]

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/linotho...armor.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linothorax#Unive...ax_Project

http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Linothorax.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ERSx1o8wwk

[S. Jansone]

Great and interesting experiment!

[Dan Howard]

Wasted opportunity. Greek linen armour was not glued. It was quilted just like every other type of layered textile armour ever worn in battle. Examples include the European padded jack, Indian peti, Aztec ichcahuipilli, the recent Mycenaean find at Patras, etc. If resources weren't squandered on the glued part of the tests then so much more would have been discovered about quilted textile defenses.

It is no better than all those boofheads shooting arrows at butted mail and pretending that it has any relevance to the riveted mail that was actually worn in battle.

[David Clark]

[Sean Manning]

Hi David, there is a old (probably > 100 year) debate on whether Greek tube-and-yoke armours were usually leather or usually linen (every possible material was used to make armour of that cut at some point). Linen would be stronger for a given weight, but leather better matches the appearance of this armour in ancient art.

When he published Greece and Rome at War, Peter Connolly suggested that these armour were glued linen instead of quilted linen. He may have been inspired by the glued linen masks used in Greek plays, and thought this would explain the springy appearance of the shoulder guards in some ancient paintings of this armour (as well as the fact that it usually appears smooth, not covered with stitches from quilting). But no evidence ever appeared to support this, its not clear that any contemporary glue would have the right properties, and no other culture used glued linen armour. It also turns out that both leather and quilted linen can be springy enough to reproduce the paintings. Earlier and later sources refer to linen thorakes/body armours, but none from the 5th or 4th century BCE when this armour was especially popular (the name "linothorax" is a modern term based on these earlier and later sources).

The idea that Greek tube-and-yoke armours were glued linen is a hypothesis which has been repeated so often that many people think its a fact.

[S. Jansone]

Does anyone know if any experiment with quilted thorax type armour has ever been made? Not stuffed like later gambeson, but quilted from more than two or more layers?

[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[Nat Lamb]

Weren't some shields covered with a layer of cloth glued to the face? (I recognise that this means absolutely nothing with regards to cloth armour, just technically it would mean that "quilted" didn't aplay to 'all' layered cloth defenses, but here the exception is as illistrative as the rule)

[Dan Howard]

Do you have a primary source to suggest that the Greeks did this?

[Nat Lamb]

no, not Greeks, I was thinking Vikings, but based on "half remembered recieved wisdom" which I believe counts as a heptenary source. My point still stands though that (assuming the Vikings did) the only other time glue was used in conjuntion with cloth was to attach it to a solid surface.
I have another reason for thinking that Dan is right about the no gluing thing but this is in the realm of "Wild theorising"... I ran some experiments a while back with a 12 kilogram steel bar and a volenteer (me) to test the diference between impacts of bar on flesh, and with phonebook as an intermediary. Rig was built to release the bar from same angle each time (was on a pivot). What I (anecdotaly) found was that although bruising was less with the phone book, it hurt more (admitadly very subjective). Also, on impacts on the stomach, the bar by itself was't too bad, but bar plus phonebook absolutely knocked the wind out of me. I wouldn't be suprised if a glued linen cuirass would function in much the same way.