The Armour Archive

Question for any and all...

Looking for the source of the vambraces shown in the Osprey books "Attila & the Nomad Hordes" and "Warriors of Islam" (I think that's the name anyways)

They look like horizontally overlapping lamellae attached to a leather backing. But I'm not about to take an Osprey sketch at face value. They mention that this is a common style of limb armour, but neglect to give the source of it.

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<I>Wulfgar Davinsson inn Gerpir af Ey-vist
Squired to Duke Davin Steingrimmson </I>

I briefly thumbed thru the Atilla book and didn't see the armor your asking about. Do you have a page #??

Yeah.. here you go:

PLate F, figure 1 (the Tarkan Champion)

Plate I, figure 3 (khirgiz Tribesman)

"The laminated vambraces on his lower arms are a long-standing Transoxanian tradition..."

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<I>Wulfgar Davinsson inn Gerpir af Ey-vist
Squired to Duke Davin Steingrimmson </I>

I've thumbed thru that a book a dozen times and never really noticed the arm armour. The only thing that really comes to mind would be the Roman Maniple. A piece of arm armour made up of concentric rings attached with leather straps. I did notice that in the descriptions he doesn't note where/what he gets his description of the armour itself from, a common problem in the Osprey books.

I'm not familiar with the book or the illustration, but are they like the "vambraces" in Fig 1 and fgs 5 and 5a here?

(Disregard the figure numbers being out of sequence - I just haven't got round to rationalising them from an earlier version of the article).

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Egfroth

"Pig, sit still in the strainer.
Pig, sit still in the strainer!
I must have my pig tea!"

Egfroth

see my webpage at www.geocities.com/egfrothos

Egfroth, I get an error reading when I click on the link.

worked ok for me

worked ok for me

As for the link... that could be a source... though the drawings show what appears to be overlapping plates, rivetted to a backing... I think.

Although, they use the drawing for much earlier periods as well.


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<I>Wulfgar Davinsson inn Gerpir af Ey-vist
Squired to Duke Davin Steingrimmson </I>

Now that I take a good look at the effigy of Goliath... that looks like the source. Any ideas on construction? If it's up in the air, I like the idea presented in the Osprey books, it seems like an attractive and practical SCA arm defense, suitable for a 7-8th century Avar.



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<I>Wulfgar Davinsson inn Gerpir af Ey-vist
Squired to Duke Davin Steingrimmson </I>

Looking at that (and at the huge Sassanid king carved at Taq-i-Bustan), I've always wondered if it wasn't simply metal strips laminated over internal leathers, and attached to each other by some form of hinge.

I am pretty sure that the arm guards at Taq-i Bustan are full manica, covering the whole arm. That's one of the depictions that makes me think that at least some manica may have been fully enclosed (rather than U-shaped in cross section, like most reconstructions are).

Anyway, there is an interpretation of the David & Goliath monument at the Silk Road Designs site:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505/bandbaz.html

Jamie
LU2.DUB.SAR

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Barkalba bar Shalamsin
m.k.a. Jamie Szudy
LU2.DUB.SAR

T-Bob... that's what McBride has drawn these as, hinged vambraces composed of overlapping small plates, which is, I think, what I'm going to try to do.

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<I>Wulfgar Davinsson inn Gerpir af Ey-vist
Squired to Duke Davin Steingrimmson </I>