The Armour Archive

My gut instinct is to say no but I bet some form of reinforced belt was used to augment armour somwhere.

Discuss.

I apologize ahead of time for this post, Audux - I know this one, at least partially, although your question is rather vague. Are you looking for actual cultures that wore kidney belts? If so... Scythians and Samnites! I can't find any pictures of primary sources for the Scythian stuff. Maybe we can find Tim Finkas on that one, or an older post by him regarding their armor? The Osprey book The Scythians 700-300 BC by Dr. E V Cernonko has several modern depictions of 5th century BC Scythian warriors wearing wide, lamellar-like reinforcements on their belts. Anyway, here's some Samnite stuff... Mainly 4th century BC.







(EDIT: Added citation!)

Known as a "Girdle" in ancient times, your gut feeling is probably right. I can't pull any thing up right now that would be imperical, but have read alot that "cinching up the girdle" was part of the plate armouring process. Such "body support" devices are recorded as early pre-roman in quite a few texts.

4th century AD too
[img]http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt47/reenactthis/Man%20E%20Faces/3260855800_3cd5408f54_b-2.jpg[/img]

Please tell me that thing on the ground is not a modern day lawn dart.

While the above are certainly belts, to me they are not the type of kidney belt armour that we see in the SCA. Were the roman and greek belts meant as armour or as belts (to hold something up, or cinched down.) The bronze one looks like it would be armour, the Roman one not so much.

Of course these are just my untrained eye's initial reaction.

CiaranBlackrune wrote:While the above are certainly belts, to me they are not the type of kidney belt armour that we see in the SCA. Were the roman and greek belts meant as armour or as belts (to hold something up, or cinched down.) The bronze one looks like it would be armour, the Roman one not so much.

Of course these are just my untrained eye's initial reaction.

I think if something can provide SCA protection while not "technically" being considered armor in period, it means the wearer is doing a good job of creating a period look that meets the requirements of the SCA. If that means that a Roman belt is a few ounces thicker than it would have been in period, or a inch taller, who wouldn't trade that for plastic plates?

Leather, while not frighteningly expensive, was not dirt cheap, either. Why did they use a wide belt instead of a narrow one? And why was the wide belt (in Roman times, at least) something worn only by the military?

"Even out of armor, the military belt set the soldier apart from the crowd and told others of his status." (Elliot, p46)

"For the soldier the belt (balteus) was important: it meant he could retain his status even when dressed in civilian garb and without his distinctive arms and armor." (Elliot, p54-55)

"Although the belts were impressively wide..." (Elliot, p55)

(Quotes from Elliot, P., "The Last Legionary" (2007), Spellmount Limited, UK. This is quite a nice look at late Roman legionary practices from the perspective of the "Comitatus", a LH group in the UK. Although many of their conclusions are based on personal experiment and "living archeology", this provides what I feel is a worthwhile second point of view to other texts which specialize in the surviving relics and texts.)

At a first take, it seems obvious: you have wide leather belts being worn by a military, it must have a military purpose, right? (To be fair, the wide balteus was also worn by some other govt officials as a signal of status; I don't know which came first.) Why do we wear wide belts, in the modern day? Either as padding for the area not shielded by our ribs - or as support for our backs - or both. It is quite possible to assume that the Roman balteus served both purposes. Infantry carries heavy things around. A lot (been there, done that, got the t-shirt...). Probably always has. Having a "weight belt" as part of the uniform would cut down on back strain injuries. It's worth noting that much of the world's infantry *still* uses a 3-inch wide nylon web belt, partly for this reason.

Having a wide leather strap covering those parts of your vitals not covered by ribs isn't a terrible idea for protection, either. While a belt-thickness of leather isn't going to stop every mortal wound, it could make some mortal wounds lesser, and stop some lesser wounds entirely. Maybe. For much of the later Roman and post-Roman period, metal armor was not worn by the majority of combatants (references instead point to "Libyan hides", layered linen tunics, aketons, and other cloth or leather armors). So perhaps the slim protection the belt provided was worthwhile.

My personal experiments with a sword vs leather alone was that an 8-10oz unhardened leather doesn't stop a sword blow with any degree of reliability, but it *will* stop a "casual cut". Basically, if you're wedged in place, the sword goes through - if you're mobile (able to slip sideways with the blow) the leather stops the sword. Sometimes.

On the flip side of this argument, however - in I.P. Stephenson's excellent treatise on late Roman infantry ("Romano-Byzantine Infantry Equipment", (2006), Tempus Publishing, UK), he does not even once mention the balteus in connection with armor. He mentions aketons, "Libyan hides", evidence for gorget use, greaves, manicus, even the rare steel gauntlet find. But although his work is very inclusive, he never mentions the belt as armor.

I'd have to say the final call is "inconclusive but arguable", for that period at least.

Vladimir wrote:Please tell me that thing on the ground is not a modern day lawn dart.

I think it's supposed to be a plumbata.

Luca Sogliano wrote:

CiaranBlackrune wrote:While the above are certainly belts, to me they are not the type of kidney belt armour that we see in the SCA. Were the roman and greek belts meant as armour or as belts (to hold something up, or cinched down.) The bronze one looks like it would be armour, the Roman one not so much.

Of course these are just my untrained eye's initial reaction.

I think if something can provide SCA protection while not "technically" being considered armor in period, it means the wearer is doing a good job of creating a period look that meets the requirements of the SCA. If that means that a Roman belt is a few ounces thicker than it would have been in period, or a inch taller, who wouldn't trade that for plastic plates?

That's not what I meant. I misunderstood the OPs question to be, are the very wide SCA style kidney belts period? My statement was that the belts shown do not seem to be the very wide kidney belts we see in the sca. I was thinking of the "body bracelet" style belts. Not just wide belts.

Sorry for the confusion.

[img]http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/female-scythian-warrior.jpg[/img]

Alcy, that's the pic I was looking for. I don't have the book anymore but if I remember right in that Osprey book Angus actually got it right (at least by the documentation in the back).

Yes there is evidence for SCA style kidney belts in period.

Piers Brent wrote:Yes there is evidence for SCA style kidney belts in period.

Could you share such evidence?



Just to satisfy my own curiosity, mine is hidden anyway.

Benedek wrote:

Piers Brent wrote:Yes there is evidence for SCA style kidney belts in period.

Could you share such evidence?

I'm not dumb enough to do that.

Benedek wrote:Alcy, that's the pic I was looking for. I don't have the book anymore but if I remember right in that Osprey book Angus actually got it right (at least by the documentation in the back).

That's from the Osprey title I mentioned in the first post. I did not believe Dr. Cernonko provides good enough evidence for the belts specifically, but after carefully re-reading the plate descriptions I see that he has... and I am attaching Dr. Cernonko's evidence for certain harnesses worn by the figures in the plates by Angus McBride, and particularly targeting the descriptions regarding the girdles. They show a variety of styles being used over the course of two centuries or so. This is all from Osprey's The Scythians 700-300 BC.

B1: Scythian warrior, late 6th/early 5th century BC
Reconstructed from finds in the barrow no. 3 near Khutor Popovka in Poltava province... The body-girdle, from the barrow near the village of Shchuchinka, is very wide, and is made from several rows of iron scales and long curved plates sewn to leather (32).

B2: This prosperous warrior is reconstructed from finds in barrow no. 493 near the village of Ilyintsi in Vinnitsa province... The sword belt is made of small bronze strips (33)

F2: Scythian Nobleman, 5th Century BC
The defensive armour was found in the tombs of the town of Nymphaeum in the Crimea... The girdle consists of 'dagged' bronze strips ( 37).

H2: Scythian king, 4th century BC
...He is reconstructed from finds at the Kul Oba royal barrow on the Kerch peninsula in the Crimea... The girdle was of gilded iron strips (39)

-Gregory

Piers Brent wrote:

Benedek wrote:

Piers Brent wrote:Yes there is evidence for SCA style kidney belts in period.

Could you share such evidence?

I'm not dumb enough to do that.

JohannM wrote:

It is better for everyone this way.

Piers Brent wrote:

JohannM wrote:

It is better for everyone this way.

PM me then...I promise not to tell a soul.

depends on what you mean.

Wide belts (couple inches) yes, to me many look remarkably like my old sam brown belt from the pd.

Wide belts 5-10 inches? ie big leather plackard, (usually covered in vaugle cletic knotwork) no, not really.

I think Cuhcullian wears on in some of the Irish legends, he also turns in to a big red incredible hulk in a few tales iirc. People cite that, but it's like citing Thor for a Norseman fighting with a 10 lb sledge on a 18 inch handel.

i have seen some ukrainian studded belts
i recall seeing an extant example even, but sorry i cant recall where