DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0453
CORSLETS OR BREAST-PLATES ON 'CHARIOT TABLETS' 803
The ' Corslet' or ' Breast-plate'.
That the chariots depicted on the tablets were War chariots
is proved by a continually recurring feature above referred to,
with which they are associated. This object is clearly a corslet
or breast-plate of a simple form. As may be gathered from
some of the types given on the tablets on Fig. 7(53, and the
oeneralizecl versions here shown in the inset (a, b, c), it seems to
have consisted of horizontal plates of metal, probably backed by
leather, covering the body and suspended from the shoulders
by curved pieces, doubtless also of bronze.1 A corslet which
seems to have had shoulder-pieces like short sleeves is seen on
a fresco fragment from Mycenae, worn by a warrior standing
beside a horse (Fig. 779).a
Examples of the corslets worn by the Egyptian soldiers
of Rameses II in his campaigns against the Hittites, though
a century later in date, display a great similarity with those of
the ' Chariot tablets'. This is well shown in the inset d? A con-
temporary example of an Egyptianizing type of this kind is also
supplied by the
body armour of'
the Shardana
mercenaries
(Fig. 780),
though the cui-
there
00
©
Fig. 779. Fragment of Painted Stucco showing
Warrior reside Horse with Short-sleeved Cors-
let : Men's Megaeon, Mycenae.
rass is
fastened at the side. The hori-
zontal plates and the shoulder-
pieces so characteristic of those
of the Knossian characters are
also here in evidence. We may
see in this, indeed, another
illustration of the strong
Egyptian influences at work
in the last days of the Palace.
The Minoan ' cuirasses' here
In some cases we see a mere loop instead are indicated by detached curves,
of a plate, and the material may well have often ' See "&j>. 'ApX., 1S87, PI. II.
been leather. At times the shoulder-pieces a Rosellini, Man. Storici, &■£, PI. CIV.
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