What are the difficulties of researchers trying to perfectly reproduce the ancient Greek armor 'Linothorax'?
Linothorax, a type of armor that is said to have been used in ancient Greece, has been confirmed to exist since the 8th century BC, but few existing specimens remain. The wife of the professor in charge talked about the difficulties when the students who were fascinated by Linothorax tried to reproduce Linothorax perfectly.
Unraveling the linothorax mystery, or how linen armor came to dominate our lives | Johns Hopkins University Press Blog
Scott Bartel, one of Gregory Aldrete's students who teaches at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, focuses on the mosaic painting ' Alexander Mosaic ' found in the ruins of Pompeii. He said he decided to make a replica of Linothorax worn by Alexander the Great.
Linothorax is an armor that has been popular since at least the 8th century BC, and it seems that it was mainly made from linen (linen), but there are few existing specimens and it has not received much attention. Therefore, Aldrete et al. Thoroughly studied the appearance of linothorax drawn on sculptures, reliefs, tombs, etc., and worked on perfect restoration to clarify the structure of linothorax and its effectiveness on the battlefield. ..
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Aldrete and his colleagues searched the library for a catalog 'Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum' containing Greek vases held in museums around the world, and spent hours researching hundreds of books. Aldrete's wife and collaborator Alicia said, 'I noticed when I started looking up, but the literature about Linothorax was surprisingly familiar.'
When actually making Linothorax, at first, like a fashion designer, he made patterns with paper and thick paper many times and finished it to the optimum design. In addition, Aldrete and his colleagues were particular about the materials and tried to obtain the hand-spun and hand-woven linen used in the ancient Mediterranean Sea. Machine production is the mainstream of modern linen, and even linen called hand-woven is often processed by modern methods, such as processing machine-harvested linen with chemicals. After hard research, Aldrete and colleagues have found a woman who actually grows and harvests flax in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and weaves hand-spun linen.
In addition to the materials, attempts were made to perfect the manufacturing process. Aldrete and his colleagues found that ancient people would have cut each layer of linen into appropriate shapes and then glued them together, sticking to tools such as putty, from the rabbit skin that was often used in ancient times. It was said that it was glued with the glue that was made.
Alicia said she was convinced that the linothorax, which had been successfully processed, was extremely durable, and that students such as Bartel would have been able to use it on the ancient battlefield as a result of cutting it with maces, swords, and axes. increase. In addition, Mr. Aldrete said that he tried to put Linothorax on Mr. Bartel and actually shot an arrow, but it seems that he did not pierce his skin.
'The purpose of our research was to restore something more than a thousand years old and experience what it was like when we used it. In the process, we had an unexpected experience. I was able to do it. '
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