Since it's not clear who exactly you're addressing on this, I'll take what I can of your post, since I'm not sure if it's all directed toward me or not.
rollo wrote:I don't think I am mudding the waters.. not at all.
First off, your wrong. No pants have been found. The pants your probably thinking of, Thorsbjerg and Damendorf, are migration era. There are some small pieces found in hedeby that my have been pants, but its a guess. As as it was pointed out to me earlier, the rock art from gotland is also not viking, it is older then that. I also think that you will find that almost, if not all, of the helmets usually associated with vikings are not actually viking. My point was that we don't always have to go with archaeological finds.
True, but what othe evidence exists for it's use? Helmets are covered by pleny of artistic references, and I believe pants are covered by artistic refernces other than the picture stones, but I admit I could be wrong on this since the norse isn't my strongsuit.
I also find that your making an assumption that I think is wrong. Your assuming that since we haven't dug it up, they did have or use it. Your missing something with that line of thinking. What it tells me is that they didn't bury their dead in it. Perhaps armor was highly prized, and was used by someone else instead of burying them in it. We bury our dead in a tux or a suit.... that doesn't mean that it is the most common thing worn.
Ok. Show me something that supports more of the use of lamellar. Artistic records? Literary records? Anything? I'm not assuming that they didn't have it, but I can't prove that they did. In Reenactment, we use what we can PROVE existed in some way, shape, or form. We may not know what it looked like exactly, or what it consisted of, but we know it existed, so we extrapolate that. We have ZERO proof of lamellar being worn, save one UNIQUE find at Birka...plates which origins are more perplexing, in my opinion, than their presence. Since that is the only evidence for lamellar in existance in the norse world, reenactors should steer clear of it. It's that simple.
It doesn't mean that lamellar WASN'T worn, it just means that there isn't enough evidence to support the widespread use of it by reenactors. How hard is that to understand?
I find it interesting that you all dismiss lamillar so easily. They have found it in a viking town. Sure it may not have been a viking that was buried with it, but that doesn't tell me that vikings didn't have it. All that tells me is that other people have different burial practices. For me, it see that vikings knew about lamillar in two ways. 1. Birk. 2. The Byzantine army. I am not saying that they got to bring home their armor, that is just a silly line of thinking. I am saying however that they knew about it. Because they knew about it, for me it is reasonable to say that they would have used it.
Sure it's reasonable. No one is arguing that point. But without anything to support the idea that they made it themselves and used it, it's a falicy to try and wear it for reenactment purposes. It's that simple.
The cut and dry approach to experimental archeology just don't cut it for me. We often have to conjecture about what was and was not done. If you want to go simply based on what has been found, your best bet would be to play a dead guy.
I have already covered extrapolation, but if you want to proceed with sarcasm and idiotic suggestions, feel free. However, plenty has been found through the artistic and literary record to give us an idea about many of the things we don't know about. Lamellar doesn't exist in these records to support it's use by the reenactment community, at least in my opinion, and a few others here as well.
In the end, we make our choices based on a number of factors. In the SCA one of the BIG factors is that chainmaile is bad armor for blunt trauma. Lamillar is much better, that is why people tend to use it. Lets not slam each other on this fact. I am sure if someone came up with an alternative to lamillar, that was good for SCA use, people would start to use it. But for know, lamillar is as close as it gets.
And I've already said that for SCA, use whatever you want. The rules of the SCA permit anything your heart desires, within reason. Reenactment and SCA aren't the same game. If you believe it is, I hate to say it's not. Both have thier place in our subculture, but they ARE different. However, I suspect that you already know that. I agree that lamellar is much better for SCA combat. I'm not alone in that thought. However, it doesn't mean that lamellar is accurate. Wishing doesn't make it so (and lord knows I wish that it did!!!
).
Tom
I personally think it does but that's just me.
