The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

Depends on the carbon content. If the carbon content is too low then the only practical option is probably to case harden it.

Dan Howard

I have bottles of homebrewed mead that are over ten years old and haven't been stored particularly carefully. I opened one a few weeks ago and it was fine. Very fine. I've just found the whole batch. 14 bottles that were done just after my daughter was born in 2001. They were stored in dark cupboar...

Dan Howard

I preferred "woss'erface y'know"

Dan Howard

I would have thought a pottery vessel of some sort. How long did they keeep mead for at the time? One would think that most of it would be gone by the following summer when it was time to make more.

Dan Howard

One example is the Kalithea greaves. They have exposed rings for lacing them to the leg so the technique dates back to the end of the Bronze Age at least.

Dan Howard

I have bottles of homebrewed mead that are over ten years old and haven't been stored particularly carefully. I opened one a few weeks ago and it was fine. Very fine.

Personally I wouldn't touch mead if it was less than 2 year old. I have plenty of other things to drink while I wait

Dan Howard

There is a continuum with two conflicting aspects. On one end you have defense. On the other you have comfort. Most castles are constructed somewhere in the middle. My point is that Lunenberg is a lot closer to the comfort end than many examples.

Dan Howard

Hi Russ. Most sources call it Jurisics Castle but this hasn't helped me find details about its layout. Can you point me in the right direction? Do you have access to a book with a floorplan? The Wikipedia entry says that the garrison held out for 25 days against Suleiman. Is that wrong?

Dan Howard

I've been trying to find a decent illustration of the castle at Kosseg as it looked during the siege and haven't had any luck.

Dan Howard

A large fireplace *was* the kitchen many places. Downhearth cooking was the norm! I'm aware of that. But unlike Scottish towerhouses the Dutch examples have no bread oven, no pantry, no buttery, no water source, etc. Unlike a Scottish towerhouse the Dutch examples cannot function for any length of ...

Dan Howard

RandallMoffett wrote:Not that strange that is where the Lords visiting family slept.

So what was this floor used for the rest of the time?

Dan Howard

Unlike the Scottish towerhouses these Dutch examples apparently have no military function at all. The walls aren't thick enough, they don't have a bread oven, there is no internal water supply, the battlements are purely cosmetic. There is only one recorded occasion when one of these tower houses wa...

Dan Howard

Lunenburg´ plans I'm trying to understand how these places worked. It seems that these tower houses didn't have much in the way of a kitchen. Apparently most of the food was prepared across the bridge at the nearby farm and brought over at meal times. Most of the servants would have slept over ther...

Dan Howard

I had a couple of questions about Lunenburg if someone could help

Some of the early images show what looks like a bridge across to the entrance on the first floor. Did Lunenburg have a moat?

What is that alcove hanging off the second floor? Was it added later or is it original?

Dan Howard

You'd probably need to find a method of determining what the original colours were. They might be yellow now but they could have been anything from dark brown to green when originally painted.

Dan Howard

Of course it was done but there is nothing to suggest that it was ever worn in medieval western Europe or Scandinavia. It would be a valid armour type in eastern Europe.

Dan Howard

Hi Len

It shouldn't take too long to put together a list of leather armour samples from various museums. That will stop those kinds of silly comments. There are two just in this thread complete with photos.

Dan Howard

There is nothing to suggest that even Roman auxilliaries wore leather armour. But it depends on your definition of auxilliary. Is an Egyptian soldier serving under an Egyptian commander in Egypt during the time of the Roman occupation considered a Roman auxilliary?

Dan Howard

I'm not seeing any visual evidence whatsoever for this being scale, unless those strips on the top and bottom are a new way of defining "backing material." Dan, what are you seeing that I'm not? I'm seeing Greg's initial post which says that the scales were attached to a leather backing and I can t...

Dan Howard

One of the many arguments against leather armour has been that it's to thin to offer much protection. No. That is argument against a lot of modern reconstuctions pretending to be armour. And for historical examples of leather clothing that some people claim were actually armour. There has never bee...

Dan Howard

Great find! Finally, proof of a leather cuirass. There is already plenty of proof for leather scale and lamellar. There is still very little to suggest that the Romans wore it. The Dura Europos example is just as likely to have been Persian as Roman, and there is no way to tell who wore Greg's exam...

Dan Howard

Looks like scale armour, not lamellar. The lacing holds the scales to a backing. I'm guessing that it was made in strips and then laced to a foundation. The example from Dura Europos is true lamellar. Where in Egypt was this found? Is there a cite for the dig report?

Dan Howard

Welding won't make the ring any stronger if the links are properly riveted. In both cases the link rarely fails at the join when stressed; it fails elsewhere along the wire, in which case the type of join is irrelevant. The strength of the wire is all that matters.

Dan Howard

Buy something with smaller links - say 6mm rather than 8-10 mm. It is harder to see all the problems with it.

Dan Howard

When properly riveted mail is tested the rivets rarely fail. The wire fails elsewhere on the link. So there is effectively no difference in strength between a riveted and a welded link. This is an attempt to explain why the Indian riveted mail is not representative of historical mail. http://www.mya...

Dan Howard

Alec's kit is very good and looks beautiful. Lamellar is being bandied about way too often here. If lamellar was worn at all in Britain it would have been a rare exception. Mail and scale are a safer bet for this region.

Dan Howard

Thomsen, E. G. & Thomsen H. H. "Early wire drawing through dies" Transactions of the ASME: Journal of Engineering for Industry Nov. Series B. 96 (1). 1974 pp.1216-21 Thomsen, E. G. & Thomsen H. H. "Drawing solid wires through soft dies in antiquity." Transactions of the ASME: Journal of Engineering ...

Dan Howard

Some early mail certainly wasn't drawn. Williams outlines a couple of ways to make wire that doesn't involve a draw plate. But I've already presented journal articles demonstrating that iron has been drawn into wire since at least the Roman period. Sim has just released a new book that goes into thi...

Dan Howard

I might be wrong but I thought that Realwroughtiron sold puddled iron, not bloomery iron. Puddled iron makes pretty crappy armour. For an accurate test you'd need refined bloomery iron of varying levels of refinement (slag distribution), carbon content and heat treatment (hardness). Early plate armo...

Dan Howard

It would be a decent approximation for low-grade munitions armour but that's about all.

Dan Howard

Are you using paper or barkcloth? Any texts that mention paper armour really refers to barkcloth. Apparently it was fairly common in China and Korea both for clothing and armour. It can be quilted just like any other textile.

Dan Howard

People are confusing beer and ale. Ale was common and had a very low alcohol content. It was a staple in some parts of Europe and should be considered more like "liquid bread" than a beverage. They also had regular beer which was less common and had a higher alcohol content. Agree with those above t...

Dan Howard

Experimental archaeology at work. Thanks for the insight.

Dan Howard

Would be interesting to know what the original colours were. If it was iron mail then you'd expect it to be the same colour as the sword.

Dan Howard

There's one that I haven't seen. Many thanks. Looks like the lamellar is made of two pieces. One for the upper chest and another for the abdomen with what appears to be mail providing some flexibility at the waist and more mail covering the thighs. Impossible to tell whether the mail is a complete s...

Re: Hot rolled mild

Re: A word about meadmaking sanitation...

Re: Lacing through rings

Re: Mead storage in "Period": How did they do it?

Re: Lacing through rings

Re: A word about meadmaking sanitation...

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Where did feudal lords usually live?

Re: Help with armor identification, please. (x-post)

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Extant LEATHER Lamellar from the Roman Empire

Re: Riveted mail vs Welded mail ... pros and cons

Re: Riveted mail vs Welded mail ... pros and cons

Re: Riveted mail vs Welded mail ... pros and cons

Re: I want to be a Romano-British warrior (5-6th century Bri

Re: Looking for "charcoal" iron

Re: Looking for "charcoal" iron

Re: Looking for "charcoal" iron

Re: Looking for "charcoal" iron

Re: Basic "paper mache" tests -- no pictures.

Re: Is it true thaty everyone drank beer?

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour

Re: Byzantine Armour