Evidence for cuisses in Archaic and Classical Greek Armour?

[Glaukos the Athenian]

Bubkis is yiddish. Glaukos was having a bit of fun with words. The word is not Greek in origin.

Didn't you know,

Like many early entertainers, Homer had to change his name to get gigs. His real name was Hershl.

In its early drafts, the Iliad was the epic tale of the war rabbi Menelavsky of Berdichev led against rabbi Primchik of Helm
caused when Feivel Primchik accepted a fruit from the "Three hot Shiksas"

But he decided it would lack mass apeal.

You can still find traces of the original if you have a good translation of the final Greek version -- For example Achiles (originaly Anshul) fell because there was an insufficient shmear of goose grease on his boots - they soaked through and he got a fatal cold.
Since most translators did not understand the mechanics of goose greased boots and the obvious connection of soaked boots and a fatal cold, they wrongly translate with the whole arrow to the heel thing most of us learned in school - though anyone should realise that this just doesn't make sense as a fatal wound.

I just re-read this thread and found the posting by Norman, and I am still wiping tears from my eyes... that was awesome!

In its early drafts, the Iliad was the epic tale of the war rabbi Menelavsky of Berdichev led against rabbi Primchik of Helm
caused when Feivel Primchik accepted a fruit from the "Three hot Shiksas"

That is worth a drinking song!!!

Glaukos

[lanchie76]

thought you guys might like these pages they are from my friends work "the UQ museum"

http://www.uq.edu.au/antiquities/77-001

http://www.uq.edu.au/antiquities/76-002


cheers Ben

[Norman]

In its early drafts, the Iliad was the epic tale of the war rabbi Menelavsky of Berdichev led against rabbi Primchik of Helm
caused when Feivel Primchik accepted a fruit from the "Three hot Shiksas"

That is worth a drinking song!!!

"Is this the face that launched a thousand carts
And burnt the covered Kugels of Kasrilovka?
Sweet Hanni, make me immortal with a kiss!"
This is, of course, the soliloquy of Doctor Fustinov as he contemplates Hanni of Helm, from the play Doctor Fustinov by Jonah Milanner, shamelessly appropriated by Marlow as Doctor Faustus*. You can see that Jonah, in the 16th century, was quite familiar with the unmodified version of the Iliad.

Of course, the term “hot Hanniâ€

[Tomburr]

Lanchie, that first pic looks like the helmet to a poop suit.

Which is to say, it lacks the usual grace of form typical in most Greek armor. But that makes it very cool to see because it is so unusual to the eyes of a non-expert in ancient Greek styling, like me. Thanks for posting it.

[audax]

That is because that helmet is from Southern Italy, that is Magna Graecia, not from a Greek workshop. It is an imitation of the classic Corinthian made by folks living in Greeces Italian colonies.

[Tomburr]

Ah, I see. In the acquisition comments, it mentioned that the eye holes were decorative and don't line up where they can be seen out of when wearing the helmet. WTF? Did I read that wrong and misunderstand? If not, then I'm missing something.

[audax]

Ah, I see. In the acquisition comments, it mentioned that the eye holes were decorative and don't line up where they can be seen out of when wearing the helmet. WTF? Did I read that wrong and misunderstand? If not, then I'm missing something.

Not impossible. It's kind of like in the SCA. You look at a piece of artwrok and take it literally and try to make something that looks like that picture. Lots of statues showing soldiers with their helms tilted back on their heads. The guy in the colony doesn't know any better and thinks that's how the helm was worn in battle. Thus the eyeholes become decorative and non-functional and the helm becomes more of a skull cap. It is a degraded style, an imitation of the real thing.

That particular helm dates from the 3rd century BC. Two centuries after the Greek Golden Age, in Italy during the period when the Romans were starting to expand their territories. So not a high quality classical piece.

[Gerhard von Liebau]

To get into a few more details, this style of helmet is most commonly referred to as an "Italo Corinthian" in the academic world. It is indeed a bi-product of twisted Italian ingenuity. The eye holes are decorative, and it is a skull cap with separate cheek pieces rather than a full facial helmet.

Some images:


A Republican Roman coin depicting one of the latest versions of said style, now without the decorative facial elements. The style persisted into the 3rd century and remained popular in both bronze and iron with Roman officers and well-to-do soldiers.

[img]http://www.royalathena.com/media/greekcataloguepics/Bronze/Armor/CLG130.jpg[/img]
An earlier example, clearly showing the detailed pseudo-Corinthian styling of the "face." This is labeled by Royal Athena as being 5th-4th century, and the transitional decades in this era seem to suit the stylization nicely.

[img]http://www.royalathena.com/media/greekcataloguepics/Bronze/Armor/CLG127.jpg[/img]
Another beautiful example from Royal Athena's catalog. This has a very pronounced, falsified Corinthian look to it, and is very likely to be earlier than the previous example.


And here's a beautiful reproduction by Craig Sitch at Manning Imperial. It's not a very decorated example, but it shows well the details of the cheek pieces and plume holders common on surviving examples. Such details would be seen on the latest Hellenic style of the Italo Corinthian, during its favor in Republican Roman times.

(EDIT: Here's a cool, well-researched study of various forms of the Italo Corinthian helmet that I just dug up online. The pictures are easy to miss, but they're the numbered hyperlinks on the far right column in the table.)

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dpd/italica/apcor/apcor.html

Cheers!

-Gregory

[Tomburr]

Oooh, okay. Yeah, I know of those helmets and their general origin, I just didn't know enough to recognise that example as one of them. To me, it looked like a full-sized ancient Juggernaut helmet or something, which confused me to no end. Now I realize its the skull cap style. Guess my perception is just off.

[sha-ul]

Ah, I see. In the acquisition comments, it mentioned that the eye holes were decorative and don't line up where they can be seen out of when wearing the helmet. WTF? Did I read that wrong and misunderstand? If not, then I'm missing something.

Not impossible. It's kind of like in the SCA. You look at a piece of artwrok and take it literally and try to make something that looks like that picture. Lots of statues showing soldiers with their helms tilted back on their heads. The guy in the colony doesn't know any better and thinks that's how the helm was worn in battle. Thus the eyeholes become decorative and non-functional and the helm becomes more of a skull cap. It is a degraded style, an imitation of the real thing.

That particular helm dates from the 3rd century BC. Two centuries after the Greek Golden Age, in Italy during the period when the Romans were starting to expand their territories. So not a high quality classical piece.

so what we are seeing is an extant example of bad armour being like toxic waste, once released into the environment it *never* goes away?

[audax]

Ah, I see. In the acquisition comments, it mentioned that the eye holes were decorative and don't line up where they can be seen out of when wearing the helmet. WTF? Did I read that wrong and misunderstand? If not, then I'm missing something.

Not impossible. It's kind of like in the SCA. You look at a piece of artwrok and take it literally and try to make something that looks like that picture. Lots of statues showing soldiers with their helms tilted back on their heads. The guy in the colony doesn't know any better and thinks that's how the helm was worn in battle. Thus the eyeholes become decorative and non-functional and the helm becomes more of a skull cap. It is a degraded style, an imitation of the real thing.

That particular helm dates from the 3rd century BC. Two centuries after the Greek Golden Age, in Italy during the period when the Romans were starting to expand their territories. So not a high quality classical piece.

so what we are seeing is an extant example of bad armour being like toxic waste, once released into the environment it *never* goes away?

Never.

[Tomburr]

So, like I said, "poop suit."