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Dysharmonnia — Curonian. A sketch
#ancient #archeology #baltic #clothing #ethnic #history #latvian #weapons #curonian #ethnicclothing
Published: 2015-02-13 23:48:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 2729; Favourites: 29; Downloads: 1
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I am trying to get through to the ancient Latvian appearance and trying to find a new approach to it. I am quite tired of Latvians being depicted in the white shirts/brown pants all the time
In order to get more out of this, I am forcing myself not to get carried away with detail (which is hard for me)People talk a lot about vikings, but Curonians are being overlooked, yet they proved to be worthy opponents of their Northern counterparts. As one of the Baltic nations they inhabited the coast of the Baltic sea, they were fierce warriors and good sailors.
This has been a bit fantasy inspired yet there is much of solid archaeologically proved stuff here.
According to most pictures, the ancient Latvian (and Curonian) runs into battle in a linen shirt and an axe. After much searching I managed to dig up a reconstruction depicting a simple leather vest. Yay! But this dude's vest is a bit of an interpretation. Mail was very uncommon - we had a lot of bronze - for the jewelry, but the local iron ore had very low quality so mail was mostly imported. And stolen. But the ancient Latvians wore tons of jewelry.
A wooden shield is a must - and it is much better than an iron one - it is thicker and the weapon could get stuck in it.
The hood is actually authentic. The fur in interpretation. But hey - we come from the north - just logical.
There were probably other things I wanted to say (I can go on about history for hours) but it is currently 2 AM so I'll probably let it be.
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Comments: 9
Good work
And I agree: it's quite true that next to vikings, ancient Baltic people are often overlooked. Although, after vikings converted to Christianity, the Viking Age kind of continued in Baltic region for some time. I guess that's the thing with the history - whoever comes first, takes the "fame", and others that follow, won't be remembered so much...
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Ha, true that! And thanks for the comment
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I wish I had something really clever to say right now, but all that comes out when typing is some gibberish silly shit, because I still haven't learned how to put the stuff I know on paper :C
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hah, you tell me. I had such a speech for this piece in my mind, when I finally got around to writing all that came out was "meh"
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ooook, a month later, here I come with some interesting info, which I think might fill the blank spot that is the history of ancient Latvian armor.
I watched a (sort of) documentary last week, ''Secrets of the Castle'', where they deal a lot with the life of people and so on in medieval times ( like, check it out, if you get ''Viasat History'', on Wednesday Evenings, and so far it has answered many questions I had ), and apparently men who couldn't afford/didn't have access to chainmail ( and even the guys who did have them ) and such used that really simple armor, which is basically a long-sleeved shirt made of layers and layers and layers of woolen fabric, sewn together.
So I started wondering if perhaps our ancestor have a similar thing. Just some food for thought.
I heard that already Alexander's Macedonians supposedly made simple, light armor out of linen sheets in a similar manner, so I don't think ancient Latvians would have been less inventive than a bunch of Greeks centuries before them
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I've come to a similar conclusion during "historical fashion styles" lectures - there is a garment called "doublet" - which was originally like a vest with detachable sleeves sewn together from multiple layers of fabric and quite sturdy. It was worn under mail or plate armor but could probably lend some protection on it's own as well. I am working now on several ancient Latvian warrior sketches so I'll keep this in mind. I'm just making fun of the usual depiction of Latvians in a battle dressed in some loose pants and a linen shirt
I should watch some History channels, I've been wondering what's the TV in the corner of my room for ...
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I think we both are thinking of the same thing
Life sure would be full of surprises for those crusaders then 
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