Armor Replica: Spartan c.480 BCE
At the left, "Stratokles" is armed and armored similarly to the way Leonidas' Three Hundred would have been armed and armored at the Battle of Thermopylae.
The shield is the famous Hoplon that is the source of our name for the Greek footsoldier. The shield is deeply dished wood with a brass skin. The rim of the shield is also reinforced with brass. It is decorated with black and white paint around the rim and the famous Spartan Lambda in red.
The greaves are hammered bronze (yellow brass). I did some Roman armor for an archeologist from Arizona. He requested that I use yellow brass because its metallurgical content was very similar to the "bronze" used for Greek and Roman armor.
The helmet is not the helmet that was eventually made to go with this panoply. It was the one available when the photographer was available! This helmet is steel, the helmet that I later made for the panoply was also bronze. It is possible that the Greeks were using iron for helmets as well as for weapons at this time, but it was probably not common.
In this photo you can see the inside of the Hoplon shield. You can see that it is deeply dished. The wood's surface is painted red. The porpax (arm band) is bronze. There is a thick cord around the interior of the shield that is gripped by the shield hand. It may also have been used for hanging the shield or for slinging the shield for transport on the march.
The thorax (body armor) is 8 layers of glued and sewn linen. It has bronze plates reinforcing the sides and a bronze decorative plate at the center chest. The red designs are painted. Linen seems to have been a popular material for the thorax. It was probably much cheaper to produce that the bronze thorax.
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