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William P




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PostPosted: Mon 26 Jan, 2015 2:36 am    Post subject: weapons armour that are ACTUAL ceremonial? (pre renaissance)         Reply with quote

to put it this way, a lot of items and weapons have often been assumed due to a number of different misunderstandings/ miscalculations that an item was 'ceremonial'

such as the sutton hoo helmet aand shield, the bronze age shield , or the waterloo helmet or the battersea shield

or many many other items...

but id wonder, what examples of stuff do we have that TRUELY was ceremonial and wasnt just badly reconstructed/ measured

now im saying pre medieval/ renaissence primarilky because it was around then that we have a lot more examples of items such as bearing swords for example and certain weapons were tretained but not really expected to be used.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Mon 26 Jan, 2015 5:13 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Some of the bronze swords that were ritually sacrificed seem to have been specifically made for the purpose because they aren't fit for combat - missing grips, unsharpened edges, etc.

The stone armours that are being recovered from Chinese tombs seem to have been specifically made for funerary purposes. The gold dagger in Tut's tomb would be another example.

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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Mon 26 Jan, 2015 5:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Actually, I suspect that the Villanovan/Faliscan "poncho cuirass" that I reconstructed for my Romulus impression was a ceremonian or funerary piece. Here's me next to the real one:



It's a completely unique piece, and frankly it's just too darn wide. I made mine narrower than what I determined the original to be, and it does restrict arm movement. I don't know how thick the metal was on the original, though it was likely quite thin as the find was very broken up.

My helmet is typical of the finned type from that time, and I'd say it's a perfectly usable battle helmet. It's a little smaller than the one in the case. However, there is also an example with a MUCH larger crest, a good 2 feet high or more--THAT is not a battle helmet! It's just goofy. I would LOVE to make one, but I'd only wear it on days with no wind...

Matthew
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William P




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PostPosted: Mon 26 Jan, 2015 8:27 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

is the waterloo helmet functional?

what about the battersea shield

ok, you wouldnt WANT to have something that nicely done up damaged but does it look like it was decently STURDY enoug to take a hit without crumpling like tin foil?
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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Mon 26 Jan, 2015 12:51 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

William P wrote:
is the waterloo helmet functional?

what about the battersea shield

ok, you wouldnt WANT to have something that nicely done up damaged but does it look like it was decently STURDY enoug to take a hit without crumpling like tin foil?


Jeffrey Hildebrandt came up with some information on both of those. He wasn't able to find thicknesses for the metal of the Waterloo helmet, but his reconstructions are quite solid even though he used thinner metal than usual. They are several layers thick over most of the surface, plus embossing, etc. Same thing with the Battersea shield, it's mostly a double layer, *and* had a wooden backing c. 8mm thick, so a rather heavy and solid shield.

I'm actually having trouble thinking of a piece of ancient armor that *looks* (to our thinking) like it was *made to be hit*. Some of the plainer wooden or hide/leather shields, maybe, but we generally don't know how those actually looked--probably painted up pretty nicely in most cases. But the only conclusion I can come to is that ancient warriors were generally concerned about having *attractive* equipment, and were more worried about hitting the other guy, than about the other guy hitting their *stuff*.

It's all about the bling.

Matthew
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Timo Nieminen




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PostPosted: Tue 27 Jan, 2015 1:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Plenty of ancient Chinese jade weapons, made in imitation of contemporary bronze weapons, that appear to have been made for funerary purposes.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Lafayette C Curtis




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PostPosted: Mon 02 Feb, 2015 8:34 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hmm. Do Japanese wooden cuirasses count? Opinion is generally split on those, with some people thinking they're real armour while others think that they're just skeuomorphic imitations of metal armour, but I tend to lean towards the latter interpretation.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Mon 02 Feb, 2015 12:03 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Hmm. Do Japanese wooden cuirasses count? Opinion is generally split on those, with some people thinking they're real armour while others think that they're just skeuomorphic imitations of metal armour, but I tend to lean towards the latter interpretation.

Do we actually have extant examples of Japanese wooden armour?

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Timo Nieminen




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PostPosted: Mon 02 Feb, 2015 1:45 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

We have Edo-period bamboo kendo armour.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Mon 02 Feb, 2015 3:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Timo Nieminen wrote:
We have Edo-period bamboo kendo armour.

Sporting equipment?

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Timo Nieminen




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PostPosted: Mon 02 Feb, 2015 4:17 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Yes, sporting equipment. Some illustrations of 18th century kendo gear at http://www2.educ.fukushima-u.ac.jp/~kuro/nakamura/kendo001.html
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Mon 02 Feb, 2015 5:27 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Are we going to define sporting equipment as "armour"? Can sporting equipment be classed as "ceremonial"?
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William P




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PostPosted: Tue 03 Feb, 2015 2:20 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

sporting armour is technically not BATTLE armour, but, laquered bamboo is no slouch either, it wont be nearly as strong as iron but its better than nothing

however im mostly looking at pre 1600's and mostly europe because around the renaissance/ edo period you start seeing, a great deal more purely ceremonial arms and armour , the edo period ESPECIALLY where armourors made armour, copying original pieces, mostly but making them purely as status symbols and gifts to other noble households etc

in europe you start seeing guard units who use pole weapons that are merely badges of rank and not meant to be used, plus the increased usage of processional bearing swords
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Timo Nieminen




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PostPosted: Tue 03 Feb, 2015 1:56 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Are we going to define sporting equipment as "armour"? Can sporting equipment be classed as "ceremonial"?


Since many kinds of non-functional (in battle) armour can be "ceremonial armour", sporting equipment can be armour, too. I'd only call it ceremonial if the sport is part of some kind of ceremony.

"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Lafayette C Curtis




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PostPosted: Wed 11 Feb, 2015 3:01 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Hmm. Do Japanese wooden cuirasses count? Opinion is generally split on those, with some people thinking they're real armour while others think that they're just skeuomorphic imitations of metal armour, but I tend to lean towards the latter interpretation.

Do we actually have extant examples of Japanese wooden armour?


Yes, from excavations at Iba (dated to the Yayoi period) and Tsuyoi (dated to the Kofun period). The dating isn't secure, though, and I haven't seen any pictures of these finds so I have no idea of how complete or fragmentary they are. Duncan Head proposed the idea that they were ceremonial imitations of iron armour rather than evolutionary sources/precursors of iron tanko since similar armour already existed in iron at a slightly earlier period in Korea.
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Wed 11 Feb, 2015 3:09 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Lafayette C Curtis wrote:
Hmm. Do Japanese wooden cuirasses count? Opinion is generally split on those, with some people thinking they're real armour while others think that they're just skeuomorphic imitations of metal armour, but I tend to lean towards the latter interpretation.

Do we actually have extant examples of Japanese wooden armour?


Yes, from excavations at Iba (dated to the Yayoi period) and Tsuyoi (dated to the Kofun period). The dating isn't secure, though, and I haven't seen any pictures of these finds so I have no idea of how complete or fragmentary they are. Duncan Head proposed the idea that they were ceremonial imitations of iron armour rather than evolutionary sources/precursors of iron tanko since similar armour already existed in iron at a slightly earlier period in Korea.

I read that this find was "organic material" that was assumed to be wooden armour. Does anyone have a cite from the original dig report?

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Lafayette C Curtis




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Jun, 2015 1:25 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Not me. I think I read about it in one of Gina L. Barnes' papers or books on the archaeology of armour in Japan and Korea (probably this one: http://www.academia.edu/4209019/Archaeologica...al_setting ), and I remember hunting the citations to find that the footnotes mentioned some Korean conference proceedings or something like that.
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