Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Could the closed Greek helmet kill a warrior?

tom hyle · 26th May 2005, 09:37 AM

I don't think I can summon up much belief that European plate armour is descended from Middle Eastern armours encountered in the crusades, both because the use of hard plates in armour in Europe predates this and seems to evolve fairly continuously, without "jumping" to an unrecognizable product; each is a relative of the last, and (more strikingly) because there seem to be significant differences in basic philosophy/design/layout between "Eastern"/Islamic armours and European ones. The shape of the plates is different (the Islamic ones are flatter and more angular/geometric; the European tend toward a more organnic/naturalistic/body-based shape), as is the way they join to each other or to the rest of the harness, as is the way that bodily joints, elbows and knees, are handled (the Islamic ones being markedly similar to only the earliest European ones; ones far predating the crusades.). It seems like two seperate/oposing streams, and if one came from the other directly It must have been very long ago (of course the first crusades were).....I think they are parrallel evolutions from distant common ancestors. BTW, AFAIK there is little or no Islamic equivalent to European full plate armour? Chainmail is said to be a Celtic invention. Is there a competing contention from/for the East?

26th May 2005, 09:37 AM	#18
tom hyle Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Houston, TX, USA Posts: 1,254	I don't think I can summon up much belief that European plate armour is descended from Middle Eastern armours encountered in the crusades, both because the use of hard plates in armour in Europe predates this and seems to evolve fairly continuously, without "jumping" to an unrecognizable product; each is a relative of the last, and (more strikingly) because there seem to be significant differences in basic philosophy/design/layout between "Eastern"/Islamic armours and European ones. The shape of the plates is different (the Islamic ones are flatter and more angular/geometric; the European tend toward a more organnic/naturalistic/body-based shape), as is the way they join to each other or to the rest of the harness, as is the way that bodily joints, elbows and knees, are handled (the Islamic ones being markedly similar to only the earliest European ones; ones far predating the crusades.). It seems like two seperate/oposing streams, and if one came from the other directly It must have been very long ago (of course the first crusades were).....I think they are parrallel evolutions from distant common ancestors. BTW, AFAIK there is little or no Islamic equivalent to European full plate armour? Chainmail is said to be a Celtic invention. Is there a competing contention from/for the East? Last edited by tom hyle; 26th May 2005 at 10:20 AM.