I can't get hold of the actual quote at the moment (i'm at work) but I do vaguely remember a Roman (or was it Greek?) historian describing the Parthian cataphract as being clad from head to foot in iron. This may have been poetic license of course, but it does imply that a cataphract's armour was noticeably heavier than Roman armour.

It looks like quilting to me.

The cataphractus was a general term used by the Romans to describe just about any sort of heavy cavalry, regardless of what armour they are wearing. The clibanarius seems to have been a more specific term referring only to the type of armour we see on the graffito. So a clibanarius is a type of cataphractus but a cataphractus may not neccessarily be a clibanarius.

This thread has proven fun and informational™, so I'll try to revive it with another interesting kind of armour;
The Dendra Panoply;
[ Linked Image ]

It is the only one found, and is dated to the 15th c. BC. The helmet is made from boar tusks.

Yeah, that one's been on my wish list for a long time! I just need more bronze sheet... It is the only complete one found so far, but bits and pieces of others have turned up in several places. It also looks a lot like the Linear B ideogram for "armor".

Boar tusk helmets can't be beat, either, and I DO have one of those!

http://www.larp.com/hoplite/BAarmor.html

So, what do you want to discuss about these lovelies?

Matthew

The Dendra panoply is certainly important, the oldest surving bronze "plate" armour. As for boars tusks helmets, well I don't think they were used anywhere else other than Mycenaean Greece! :D

I suppose technically boars tusks helmets might be considered a form of lamellar. I can't quite remember what the criteria for lamellar were (maybe someone at some point will have to summarise the main points of this thread), but was one of them them that lamellae are attached at the top and bottom? Unlike scales which are only attached at the top. Mind you I think another criterion was that they must overlap, which the boars tusks don't.

I'm very impressed that someone has actually reconstructed one. It should have been used in Wolfgang Petersen's "Troy". But then again historical accuracy was fairly low on their list of priorities when they made that film.

Lamellar is defined by the pieces being so connected that there is no need for a backing material to hold the armour together. The lames are tied to each other, whereas is scale the pieces are fastened to the backing. There are a few cases where the scales may interlock (I think), but not be actually connected. In late medieval times, a brigandine or coat of plates would be most like scale armour, but applying that term seems a bit odd.

I am doubtful about what to call armour where the pieces do not overlap, but are fastened to a backing. This applies to the boar's tooth helmet, and to this piece below from Slovenia.

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One possible definition is simply "reinforced leather". Leather armour reinforced with organic or metal "plates." The medieval "armoured surcoat" would be another example of reinforced armour.

Wouldn't the difference between Scale armour and Lammelar be that one is made of scales, while the other is made of lammelae?

lammelae beeing latin for small plate.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Di...a=lamellae

While the boars tooth helmet, for instance, is clearly not made of scale. It could however be argued to be made of small plates, but personaly I would not classify it as lamelar, as that would be stretching the term.

By nature, scale scale armour is most easily constructed on a backing garment. This does not mean that all metal plates stuck on a backing garment becomes scales.

Those disc-and-stud helmets were pretty popular in Italy, too, in the pre-Roman period. And the metal parts wouldn't be too hard to make, either! The term "composite" might be a good description, though it seems like a cop-out.

The boar tusks on my helmet do overlap, and Connolly overlaps them in his reconstructions, too. The bits you see in museums might or might not, but they use as much guesswork as anyone else. The archeological remains are generally just a pile of half-decayed pieces. But some of the depictions do seem to show overlapping tusks. It actually never occurred to me to think of this as either scale or lamellar! I think I'll just go on calling a "boar tusk helmet"--another cop-out!

Khairete,

Matthew

This might be too obvious to be true: But if it looks like overlapping SCALES it's scale armour. :p :lol: