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Conclusion
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Conclusion With this book we have attempted to tackle a number of contentious issues, nearly all of which result from a lack of definitive surviving evidence. Scattered and incomplete literary sources offer enough mentions of linen armor that we can be sure that this item existed, but these same sources tantalize us by not providing adequate detail for us to know how it was made, exactly when it was used, and by whom. Similarly , the visual evidence is at the same time overwhelming in its volume yet frustrating in that it leaves many of the most basic questions, such as what material is being depicted, unanswered. One solution to such uncertainties is to simply throw up our hands and say, “Here is something about the ancient world that we will never have a definite answer to.” Such a negative and passive reaction to the challenges posed by the surviving sources is as unhelpful as it is pointless. We must do the best we can with what we have, and when the meager evidence can be supplemented through the methods we have employed in this study, such as reconstructive archaeology, then these supplementary forms of information should be eagerly welcomed. While civilizations change over time, the basic laws of physics do not, and thus valid scienti fic testing can reveal information otherwise lost, and practical experimentation can produce valuable data, offer fresh perspectives, and yield new insights. Even if the conclusions resulting from such procedures must be accompanied by unattractive qualifiers such as “most likely” or “almost certainly,” we have at least moved away from the realm of helpless ignorance and forward into one of calculated probabilities. We have argued that armor made out of multiple layers of linen was widely used by many different ancient cultures (including the Greeks) across the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. The ancient literary sources testifying to this are simply too numerous and too explicit for any doubt to remain about this basic point. Whether the layers of these corselets were laminated together with glue or sewn together with thread cannot be determined with certainty. Given the widespread use of this armor and the lack of standardization in the ancient world, it seems safe to say that both methods were attempted. The laminated construction gives better protection and was easier to make; therefore, we suspect that it was the more common one. Conclusion 167 Linen corselets can also with reasonable assurance be identified with the sort of body armor commonly seen in vase paintings and other visual images that has been labeled “Type IV” and is sometimes referred to as a “composite corselet,” a “shoulderpiece corselet,” or “tube and yoke armor.” We have identified more than 900 of these images, which collectively provide useful information about how such armor was made, worn, and decorated. It is possible, however, to construct corselets with this same appearance out of materials other than linen, with the most likely alternative being leather. Although the textual evidence for such leather corselets is weaker, again, given the diversity of manufacturers and circumstances for making armor in the ancient world, it nevertheless seems highly likely that at least some of these images portray leather armor. In the surviving iconographic sources, armor made from the two materials would be indistinguishable. When sifting through such issues, there often seems to be an odd desire to impose uniformity on the ancient world. Thus individuals will sometimes vehemently argue that all of the Type IV images on vase paintings must depict leather armor rather than linen, or that all linothorax images must represent sewn rather than laminated layers. Why we should assume such homogeneity across dozens of separate political units, spanning hundreds of years, in an era without standardized mass production, is inexplicable. Certainly such uniformity would make our modern analyses tidier, but the reality is that all of these materials and technologies were widely available in the ancient world, and all were likely employed by various warriors at one time or another. Whether an individual or group constructed armor using a specific technique or material at a given moment was determined by convenience, availability, necessity, and cultural traditions rather than for our convenience in forming typologies. Our experiments and reconstructions have also revealed that linen body armor would definitely have enjoyed several distinct advantages over comparable bronze armor. First (and most obviously), it is simply a far more practical material to wear in a hot...