The Forces of Madness Take up the Earth Basket
The ground has been surveyed, the walls measured, and the materials gathered. Now it is time to build the siege ramp for this sartorial siege, or less metaphorically to quilt endless rows of stitches.
reconstruction
The Forces of Madness Renew the Assault
Not even the weapons of Erra and the scornful ghosts of the Innsbrucker Schneiderkunst can stop this madness.
Read more
The Forces of Madness Gather
The Madness Continues
The madness continues, in the form of a mockup in the traditional cheap cotton.
The Madness Begins
I am sorry to be cryptic, but this is closer to my hobbies than my work, and people with the right interests will recognize it.
A Third of a Metre of Linen, Some Thread, and a Few Spare Hours
Lately I have been trying to spend less time online and more working with my hands. For another project I wanted to practice my stab stitch and see how organic thread compares to the cotton-coated synthetic which I usually use. While I was doing that, I thought I would take a few hours to learn some things about a type of armour which many people today find difficult to understand, namely layered cloth. This post has many photos; don’t forget that you can click on them to see a larger version.
Link Dump
Manti on Greek Helmets
A new doctoral thesis by Dr. Panagiota Manti on the construction of Greek bronze helmets is now available online (here). Manti had an unusual theory, namely that some Greek helmets were cast in something close to their final form then reshaped by hammering. This idea goes against a lot of comparative evidence for armour being... Continue reading: Manti on Greek Helmets
Did the Greeks Wear Glued Linen Armour?
A recent scholarly book argues that ancient Greek soldiers wore body armour of many layers of linen glued together. This would be surprising, since most cultures with linen armour sewed it together, but some people are concerned that Greek images of this armour rarely show stitch marks.* The book briefly cites two 19th century articles as evidence that such glued linen armour has been found.** Many curious readers will not be able to follow up on these references, since the necessary journals are hard to obtain outside of a large reference library, and since the articles are in Italian and German. One perk of studying in Innsbruck is that I do have access to the necessary publications, and I can read German if not Italian. I therefore spent a few hours flipping through online databases and back issues of journals with gilded titles on the spines and „königlich und kaiserlich“ in the stamps on the title page. Because many interested people do not have access to these articles, I have decided to reproduce the key passages with an English summary.
The first article describes the contents of an Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia. (It was published as W. Helbig, “Oggetti Trovati nella Tomba Cornetana detta del Guerriero,” Annali dell’Instituto di Corrispondenza Archaeologica 46 (1874) 249-266). The relevant passage seems to be as follows:
Dress and Armament of the Persian Army
Dr. Stefan Bittner has kindly informed me that the line drawings from his thesis on the Achaemenid army are available at his online photo gallery. Copies of his thesis, and several other books, are still for sale at his press Bodem Verlag. His book is the single biggest source for Achaemenid kit and clothing, and... Continue reading: Dress and Armament of the Persian Army
