How the Iberians looked

[Lusitanio]

I always had doubts about the scale armour presented in many concept art and games for the Edetan warriors (in the Iberian Peninsula). Would that be something really used at that time?

You can see in this site what I am talking about, it is in spanish, sorry, try using the translate function. The image in question is the Guerrero Edetano.

https://arrecaballo.es/edad-antigua/...ca/los-iberos/

[athanaric]

The image in question is the Guerrero Edetano.

Speaking of which, is that body paint on his arms and feet, or is he a psycho wearing the skin of a black person?

[Marvzilla]

Bodypaint appearantly.

[Rad]

Where can I read up and see images of those Iberian belts? They're pretty unique.

[Lusitanio]

For a better look of the type of armour I'm talking:

https://imgur.com/a/7V2yo7e

[jany248]

New units? nice looking

[Lusitanio]

New units? nice looking

It's not a new unit for EBII! It's just an example from another game, in this case, from the forbidden mod

[jany248]

give me some iberians

[Lusitanio]

They will come in due time...

If you look at the export_descr_unit you can see some of the iberian units that are still missing like the returning celtiberian mercenary, Vettonians and Vasconians units, etc.

[Trarco]

No, scale armours are fantasy armours, there are no archaeological evidences of its existence in the Iberian Peninsula and they were scarce even in the Carthaginian and Roman armies. These type of armours were more common in the East. In EBII we know about this fact and want to correct it in the future.

About more Iberian units, we still have several of them to do. A special mention for the Vaccaei, Cantabrians and other peoples located between the Duero and Upper Ebro river

[Rad]

No, scale armours are fantasy armours, there are no archaeological evidences of its existence in the Iberian Peninsula and they were scarce even in the Carthaginian and Roman armies. These type of armours were more common in the East. In EBII we know about this fact and want to correct it in the future.

About more Iberian units, we still have several of them to do. A special mention for the Vaccaei, Cantabrians and other peoples located between the Duero and Upper Ebro river

YASSSS! GIMME MOR OF MAH HISTORIKAL AKKURACY!

[Lusitanio]

No, scale armours are fantasy armours, there are no archaeological evidences of its existence in the Iberian Peninsula and they were scarce even in the Carthaginian and Roman armies. These type of armours were more common in the East. In EBII we know about this fact and want to correct it in the future.

Thanks Trarco! That's what I was thinking and wanted to be sure of it

[Ivir Baggins]

No, scale armours are fantasy armours, there are no archaeological evidences of its existence in the Iberian Peninsula and they were scarce even in the Carthaginian and Roman armies. These type of armours were more common in the East. In EBII we know about this fact and want to correct it in the future.

About more Iberian units, we still have several of them to do. A special mention for the Vaccaei, Cantabrians and other peoples located between the Duero and Upper Ebro river

Is it known at all why scale armour was so much less common in the West?

[Trarco]

Is it known at all why scale armour was so much less common in the West?

The lack of archaeological evidences is the main reason to think that. The tactics and ways to fight meant the adoption of other types of armours (cardiophylax, linothorax, lorica hamata...) that were more useful for the western peoples. From a sociopolitical point of view, in Iberia, the traditional fights between aristocratic champions (i.e. Homeric style) from the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age was replaced for batlles in which all the free men of the community were involved. This meant that the costly aristocratic panoply (with several elements made of bronze like the cardiophylax) was replaced for cheaper and lighter (although still usefull) elements for example made of leather or other elements of organic nature. Something similar we can see in the better known history of Greece.


Quoting Fernando Quesada Sanz about the matter of the Iberian scale armours:


" All the figures on the Vessel wear a type of coselete (light armour vest), perhaps with sleeves made from another material. The part which covers the chest (sometimes down to the diaphragm, sometimes to the belly) is covered with a scaled pattern which has caused many to think of metallic protection. Moreover, the lower abdomen is covered with what, without doubt, appears to be pteryges, hanging strips of organic material (usually leather or linen) which gave the wearer a certain degree of protection without restricting their movement. They seem to be wearing some type of metallic armour of which there were a great variety in use from Greece to the south of Gall via Italy. The majority of those who support this theory – including the aforementioned artist – believe that the Vessel depicts scaled armour (see the majority of the references already cited). This type of armour was usually made up of small plates, normally made of bronze, sewn onto a textile support. It is a type of armour well-known in the western Mediterranean and Asia from the Bronze Age, and to a far lesser extent in Greece during the Iron Age. However, in Iberia (as in the Celtic world) no scaled armour of this type is known, nor represented on other media (sculptures, offerings, or even other ceramics). It was rare even in Italy, and in the classical Greek world it was used only occasionally as a complement to a type of textile armour (linothorax). But at the end of the third century neither the Carthaginians nor Romans appear to have used this type of protection; the legionaries in particular, as Polybius says (VI, 23, 14 15), wore a small bronze square on their chest at the most, and only the most affluent wore a coat of iron chainmail. This second option — the coat of mail — has also been suggested for the Llírian warriors, but these coats of mail from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE did not have pteryges and were furthermore an absolutely rarity in Iberia (in fact, not a single piece from a coat of mail is known to have existed in Iberia before the Caesarean period, in the middle of the 1st century BCE). Moreover, the decorative pattern used on the Vessel does not seem to be that for ring-woven mail, which is usually depicted in a different way in the visual arts (Quesada and Rueda, 2017). Finally, other authors have suggested armour made from bronze sheets, small rectangular plates sewn together, of which there is no iconographic or archaeological evidence in Iberia and which was not used – or barely used – in the central Mediterranean region in this period. Moreover, plate armour is normally depicted in a much simpler way using a pattern of small squares or rectangles. Only the penultimate infantryman has his entire torso covered by a pattern of crossed lines forming small diamonds (which only cover the abdomen and belly of the rest of the figures), but the diagonal lines would not be adequate to represent plate amour, whose lines are clearly vertical and horizontal, and are represented in this way on some small Etruscan offerings, for example. The most probable explanation is that the Llírian warriors are wearing a type of quilted protection, more likely made from textile than leather. In fact, the scale pattern was, for example, used on Greek ceramics to represent both metal scales and organic protective wear (the aegis or skin of Amalthea’s goat which protected Athena) and even the wings of deities such as Thanatos and Hypnos, such as on the famous vessel decorated by the painter Euphronios. In fact, Anderson explained many years ago that the scales in Greek black-figure paintings were normally used to indicate “hair on a hide... or even as a decorative motif on cloth”.

[Roma_Victrix]

Speaking of which, is that body paint on his arms and feet, or is he a psycho wearing the skin of a black person?

That freaked me out too. It basically looks like reverse Michael Jackson.

No, scale armours are fantasy armours, there are no archaeological evidences of its existence in the Iberian Peninsula and they were scarce even in the Carthaginian and Roman armies. These type of armours were more common in the East. In EBII we know about this fact and want to correct it in the future.

About more Iberian units, we still have several of them to do. A special mention for the Vaccaei, Cantabrians and other peoples located between the Duero and Upper Ebro river

Well, we know they wore chain mail at least, since the Celts and by extension Celtiberians used it and it became widespread during the 4th-3rd centuries BC throughout much of Europe, even in the Roman army by the Polybian era. You can see the Lusitani tribes wearing it as well. The padded leather armor of the Iberian units also looks pretty cool, as do the bronze mirror style plate armor for the torso (reminiscent of the early Roman/Italic square plate covering the chest). To replace the bits of scale armor, I would replace it with one or two new models of both iron chain mail and leather varieties, or even the round bronze mirror one.

As for scale armor only being used in the East, that's not true at all! At least by the time of the Roman Empire. Troops of the Roman Empire, especially eastern auxiliaries, would have been accustomed to using scale (lorica squamata and the fancier lorica plumata for officers) and bringing it to or even making it in Western Europe on occasion. In fact, we have archaeological finds of Roman scale armor from England, Wales, and Austria! Read this: https://www.larp.com/legioxx/squamata.html

Mind you, none of these examples are Iberian or from pre-Roman Iberian groups, but they are still from Western Europe.

[Genava]

since the Celts and by extension Celtiberians

I don't think it is a valid reasoning. Celtiberians are really differents and didn't adopted the warfare elements of the Gauls that much.

[Roma_Victrix]

I don't think it is a valid reasoning. Celtiberians are really differents and didn't adopted the warfare elements of the Gauls that much.

From the Fernando Quesada Sanz quote provided by Trarco above, we apparently don't have archaeological evidence of chain mail armor from Iberia until the 1st century BC during the late Roman Republic, but obviously it existed in the Iberian peninsula before then, at the very least because of the Roman presence. We also know that the Carthaginians, after the First Punic War, started to adopt chain mail armor and even re-purposed it from the corpses of Roman legionary soldiers after battles. The Carthaginians fought the Romans in Spain during the Second Punic War (for instance, the Battle of Ilipa), and I think it's safe to say by then both sides in that conflict featured troops that wore it. I think it would be safe to say Roman soldiers and even their local Iberian allies were wearing it while fighting in the armies of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Scipio Aemilianus Africanus (who took Numantia in 133 BC), let alone the two sides fighting in the later Sertorian War of 80-72 BC.

[Trarco]

Well, we know they wore chain mail at least, since the Celts and by extension Celtiberians used it and it became widespread during the 4th-3rd centuries BC throughout much of Europe, even in the Roman army by the Polybian era. You can see the Lusitani tribes wearing it as well. The padded leather armor of the Iberian units also looks pretty cool, as do the bronze mirror style plate armor for the torso (reminiscent of the early Roman/Italic square plate covering the chest). To replace the bits of scale armor, I would replace it with one or two new models of both iron chain mail and leather varieties, or even the round bronze mirror one.

We can't accept that reasoning because the Celtiberian material culture has nothing to do with the La Tene culture. This one just appear (in military elements) in the Iberian Peninsula in the eastern area located to the north of the river Ebro. So we can't say that the Celtiberians (and least of all, the Iberians) are an extension of the Gauls in terms of warfare and panoplies. It's true that Celtiberians adopted the La Tene sword from Gaul but they modified it a lot (scabbard, suspension system, blade, etc) in order to develop a local sword called gladius hispaniensis that again has nothing to do with the La Tene productions. We can say in general terms that apart from local military productions, several pieces of the Iberian panoply were the result of Mediterranean influences that came to the coast through Italy like for example the cardiophylax or the prototype of the falcata. Then, peoples from the Meseta (inner plateau) like the Celtiberians were influenced by the eastern Iberians from the Southeast, Levant, etc. So, in spite of the fact that the Hispano-Celtic peoples must be understood as members of the Celtic world in terms of language, traditions, religion, etc. we need to be careful to relate their weapons with the La Tene ones.

In the case of the armours, the lorica hamata just appear in the Iberian media during the Roman period, and only Strabo mentions that among the Lusitanians only a few of them could afford the use of this armour. Most of them used the linothorax according to this author.

Finally, we can't use for the Iberians the round bronze cardiophylax because as the archaeology reveals, this armour dissapeared from the Iberian tombs in the 4th century BC. Surely the new warfare based on battles of freemen rather on battles betwen aristocratic champions is one of the main reasons. That may be not applicated to the Celtiberians since their late equestrian sceptres show horsemen with this archaic defensive piece.

In summary, if the Iberian peoples used the lorica hamata probably it was used just for the minority of the warriors, so in EBII, just the Iberian aristocrats or units of mercenary nature will have acces to this armour, this means that the lamellar armours will be replaced by organic ones.

As for scale armor only being used in the East, that's not true at all! At least by the time of the Roman Empire. Troops of the Roman Empire, especially eastern auxiliaries, would have been accustomed to using scale (lorica squamata and the fancier lorica plumata for officers) and bringing it to or even making it in Western Europe on occasion. In fact, we have archaeological finds of Roman scale armor from England, Wales, and Austria! Read this: https://www.larp.com/legioxx/squamata.html

Mind you, none of these examples are Iberian or from pre-Roman Iberian groups, but they are still from Western Europe.

The warfare, political needs, economic possibilities, eastern foreign influences, etc. of the Imperial period have nothing to do with the juncture of the western pre-Roman peoples, this is why I was always referring to the pre-Roman times, Punic Wars, etc. More or less the time frame of EBII

[Rad]

So, we can expect great changes in the appearance of Iberian units?

[Trarco]

Making new units has more priority than reworking existing ones, but in general terms there are some plans to update some Iberian units. I am not sure if they can be considered great changes but judge for yourself: the idea (without going into the details) is to remove fantasy elements (lamellar armours, iron Capacete helmets...) and archaic pieces (bronze cardiophylax, bronze greaves...), give a few units a mercenary nature (lorica hamata, Hispano-Chalcidian helmet when possible...) and give organic armours to the native units. Finally, another idea is to make the Iberian reform more interesting and accurate. This means that the Montefortino helmet and the thureos can just appear in the Iberian Penisnula after the reform (the exception are the Ilergetes and neighbouring peoples due to the fact that they use La Tene weapons). But again, new units (that also affects the Iberian roster) has more priority