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Details
LOT 1426
Hellenistic Bronze Cuirass Section
3RD-1ST CENTURY B.C.
8 7/8 in. (245 grams, 22.6 cm).
Possibly an upper right front element of a composite cuirass for a cataphract (armoured horseman), part of the edge around the neck and shoulders still preserved although fragmentary, part of the clasps for attaching the back section still visible. [No Reserve]
Provenance
UK private collection, acquired in 1996.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Literature
Cf. Connolly, P., Greece and Rome at War, London, 2006, figs.p.55-56, for the typology of armour and similar fragments.
Footnotes
A near complete armour for cataphract was found in the French excavations in Al-Khanoum, a Hellenistic city in Afghanistan. The cavalry of Seleucid, Ptolemaic and other Hellenistic Kingdoms formed regiments of heavy armoured horsemen, who in the west, employed a combination of lamellar and segmented armour together with muscled armour of Greek type. Cataphract armour in the West had more Greek elements, for example more plate armour and less scale and lamellar.
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