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There is a comment from the author in response to someone that I found fascinating, and I am quoting here to respond to: > We found that even more of a threat

There is a comment from the author in response to someone that I found fascinating, and I am quoting here to respond to: > We found that even more of a threat than rain was one’s own sweat on a hot day. So, yes, it does need waterproofing, both inside and out. We did a number of experiments along those lines, and found that rubbing a block of beeswax over all sides of the armor provided nice waterproofing. It also makes the armor smell nice! When you wear it for a couple hours, your own body heat softens the glue a bit and makes it conform to your body shape, so it is much more comfortable to wear than rigid types of armor. Our reconstructions weighed about 10 pounds–about one third the weight of bronze armor that would provide the same degree of protection. Thanks for the questions! It would explain to some degree why this armor may have found such military success during that time period, that it was more comfortably and more closely conformed to the body while offering similar protections. One of the things many people who've never had to wear armor for an extended period of time on a hot day don't realize is how horribly uncomfortable armor is, and how that discomfort can be a severe distraction under battlefield conditions. One thing that also interested me about this is that we found that one of the strongest materials we have available to use in modern materials science is also laminated cloth, in this case carbon fiber laminates. By ensuring that the direction of the weaves are perpendicular to one another when doing a cloth layup, and using a sufficiently strong adhesive/sealant, these types of materials are incredibly strong. Carbon fiber and carbon kevlar both are exceptionally strong materials that would make great armor (and do), and it seems the linothorax is essentially an early application of some of the same ideas, with lesser source materials.

kbenson 4y ago
> By ensuring that the direction of the weaves are perpendicular to one another when doing a cloth layup, and using a sufficiently strong adhesive/sealant, these types of materials are incredibly strong. I wonder if they tested that when creating their replica linen armor? That seems like the kind of thing ancient armor makers would definitely have tested out.
sillyquiet 4y ago
>One of the things many people who've never had to wear armor for an extended period of time on a hot day don't realize is how horribly uncomfortable armor is, and how that discomfort can be a severe distraction under battlefield conditions. Maybe! A well tailored and properly weight-distributed mail hauberk (which is also conformal) is surprisingly comfortable for extended period of time in all kinds of weather. (Source: my own experience in medieval re-enactment). What gets you in hot weather are the textiles - with mail its the necessary padding under the mail that will cause issues in hot weather. the author's point that linen was more comfortable than 'rigid' armor was probably true, but I will point out that rigid armors were also individually tailored, balanced, and created for optimal weight distribution. As an aside mail armor was a successful and popular armor for a millennium, from the Iron Age to the middle ages (and continued to be successful as an augment to plate and in other contexts like South Asia and India until probably the 16th century). It was probably contemporary to the linen armor of the article (In time, not geographically - it was used most heavily in iron-rich regions in central Europe at first).
dsr_ 4y ago
Linen is also going to be cheaper than bronze (and later iron), even though linen fabric is quite an expensive material by the standards of a pre-industrial society. If you can grow flax, you get edible flaxseed, flaxseed oil, and linen fibers for thread and then weaving... and next year, hopefully, you get a new crop of flax. Save the bronze for your swords.
- giantg2 4y ago
  If I remember correctly, if you harvest for fibers, that's before it goes into seed.
  - kurupt213 4y ago
    I thought it’s the seed stalk. The seed for oil, the stalk for fiber. The oil could have even been used as the polymeric resin for gluing the layers (and is very water resistant when it cures)
  - whtrbt 4y ago
    Someone posted this link above (https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/ https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/) which indicates that separating the seed is part of the processing.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      This says there are many opinions in when is best to harvest the fibers, and that they believe it is before the seeds are ripe. http://hoe-farming.com/growing-and-harvesting-linen-flax/ http://hoe-farming.com/growing-and-harvesting-linen-flax/
- Retric 4y ago
  Iron was likely relatively cheap to produce compared to Linen. You can find various YouTube videos of people processing iron ore by hand fairly rapidly though it takes significant quantities of wood or coal. Something like 2 weeks of labor to the extract and process raw ore for enough iron to make a breastplate seems likely. Though transportation would be an issue. Linen on the other hand required extreme processing simply to get thread and takes up valuable farmland, but could be produced locally. https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/ https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/ Linen armor would only have been relatively cheap as a means of recycling old garments. However, that’s likely to degrade it’s protective value.
eyko 4y ago
A lot of their work is speculative (e.g. it's not clear that the layers of linen were glued, but they went with the assumption). It's interesting that they did not consider one of the most likely combinations: linen layers sewn onto leather. This would be more flexible (glue makes linen quite stiff) and more sweat resistant.
- ltbarcly3 4y ago
  It would also be relatively easy to puncture. Gluing the linen creates a composite material which should greatly outperform either of the component materials (the primitive animal glue will be almost crumbly on it's own, and woven cloth is very weak against punctures since there is very force holding parallel fibers of material close together). As is stated elsewhere, this is why things like fiberglass and carbon fiber are ubiquitous in the modern world.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Let me introduce you to the gambeson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson :) Multiple layers of quilted cloth are extremely effective.
    - ltbarcly3 4y ago
      Im familiar, i think it works largely by being loose and giving. Arrows are fast, they have a lot of kinetic energy but relatively little momentum. You can decelerate them pretty effectively.
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        Thick layered cloth armor quite honestly also doesn't feel like something I'd bring if I was about go on a tour of conquest including such warm places as those conquered by Alexander the Great.
        4y ago
dredmorbius 4y ago
Wood itself is a composite material (lignan are the fibres, other stuff is effectively resin). Adobe is a fibre-composit (mud and strawa), as is daub-and-wattle plastering. We've come up with more interesting fibres and resins over the years, but the fundamental concept is ancient and impressively effective.
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  Does rebar and concrete count?
  - belenos46 4y ago
    By any reasonable metric, I would say so.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      Agreed. There are newer variations including polymer-reinforced concrete (using fibres within the concrete matrix), and I'd be really surprised if there weren't developments using pre-stressed nets or webbing of polymers or other flexible fibres. That said, I don't follow the topic closely.

kbenson 4y ago

> By ensuring that the direction of the weaves are perpendicular to one another when doing a cloth layup, and using a sufficiently strong adhesive/sealant, these types of materials are incredibly strong. I wonder if they tested that when creating their replica linen armor? That seems like the kind of thing ancient armor makers would definitely have tested out.

sillyquiet 4y ago

>One of the things many people who've never had to wear armor for an extended period of time on a hot day don't realize is how horribly uncomfortable armor is, and how that discomfort can be a severe distraction under battlefield conditions. Maybe! A well tailored and properly weight-distributed mail hauberk (which is also conformal) is surprisingly comfortable for extended period of time in all kinds of weather. (Source: my own experience in medieval re-enactment). What gets you in hot weather are the textiles - with mail its the necessary padding under the mail that will cause issues in hot weather. the author's point that linen was more comfortable than 'rigid' armor was probably true, but I will point out that rigid armors were also individually tailored, balanced, and created for optimal weight distribution. As an aside mail armor was a successful and popular armor for a millennium, from the Iron Age to the middle ages (and continued to be successful as an augment to plate and in other contexts like South Asia and India until probably the 16th century). It was probably contemporary to the linen armor of the article (In time, not geographically - it was used most heavily in iron-rich regions in central Europe at first).

dsr_ 4y ago

Linen is also going to be cheaper than bronze (and later iron), even though linen fabric is quite an expensive material by the standards of a pre-industrial society. If you can grow flax, you get edible flaxseed, flaxseed oil, and linen fibers for thread and then weaving... and next year, hopefully, you get a new crop of flax. Save the bronze for your swords.

giantg2 4y ago
If I remember correctly, if you harvest for fibers, that's before it goes into seed.
- kurupt213 4y ago
  I thought it’s the seed stalk. The seed for oil, the stalk for fiber. The oil could have even been used as the polymeric resin for gluing the layers (and is very water resistant when it cures)
- whtrbt 4y ago
  Someone posted this link above (https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/ https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/) which indicates that separating the seed is part of the processing.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    This says there are many opinions in when is best to harvest the fibers, and that they believe it is before the seeds are ripe. http://hoe-farming.com/growing-and-harvesting-linen-flax/ http://hoe-farming.com/growing-and-harvesting-linen-flax/
Retric 4y ago
Iron was likely relatively cheap to produce compared to Linen. You can find various YouTube videos of people processing iron ore by hand fairly rapidly though it takes significant quantities of wood or coal. Something like 2 weeks of labor to the extract and process raw ore for enough iron to make a breastplate seems likely. Though transportation would be an issue. Linen on the other hand required extreme processing simply to get thread and takes up valuable farmland, but could be produced locally. https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/ https://ulsterlinen.com/flax-to-linen/ Linen armor would only have been relatively cheap as a means of recycling old garments. However, that’s likely to degrade it’s protective value.

eyko 4y ago

A lot of their work is speculative (e.g. it's not clear that the layers of linen were glued, but they went with the assumption). It's interesting that they did not consider one of the most likely combinations: linen layers sewn onto leather. This would be more flexible (glue makes linen quite stiff) and more sweat resistant.

ltbarcly3 4y ago
It would also be relatively easy to puncture. Gluing the linen creates a composite material which should greatly outperform either of the component materials (the primitive animal glue will be almost crumbly on it's own, and woven cloth is very weak against punctures since there is very force holding parallel fibers of material close together). As is stated elsewhere, this is why things like fiberglass and carbon fiber are ubiquitous in the modern world.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Let me introduce you to the gambeson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson :) Multiple layers of quilted cloth are extremely effective.
  - ltbarcly3 4y ago
    Im familiar, i think it works largely by being loose and giving. Arrows are fast, they have a lot of kinetic energy but relatively little momentum. You can decelerate them pretty effectively.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      Thick layered cloth armor quite honestly also doesn't feel like something I'd bring if I was about go on a tour of conquest including such warm places as those conquered by Alexander the Great.
      - 4y ago

dredmorbius 4y ago

Wood itself is a composite material (lignan are the fibres, other stuff is effectively resin). Adobe is a fibre-composit (mud and strawa), as is daub-and-wattle plastering. We've come up with more interesting fibres and resins over the years, but the fundamental concept is ancient and impressively effective.

tbrownaw 4y ago
Does rebar and concrete count?
- belenos46 4y ago
  By any reasonable metric, I would say so.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Agreed. There are newer variations including polymer-reinforced concrete (using fibres within the concrete matrix), and I'd be really surprised if there weren't developments using pre-stressed nets or webbing of polymers or other flexible fibres. That said, I don't follow the topic closely.