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jottel.bsky.social
Jan on a train 🚈
@jottel.bsky.social
67 followers 120 following 230 posts
He/Him, They/Them; Art and History M.Ed.; probably on a train right now
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jottel.bsky.social
Not even sure who this is supposed to be because this is not the promo-Odysseus helmet.
Apart from the vertebrae everything kinda looks sci-fi
December 19, 2025 at 3:02 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Is it the English translation maybe? I do find Clausewitz in German very comfortable to read, these senctences are like half as long as any Thucydides translation that I can access tbh and they're also not half as confusingly constructed as scholarly papers of 80s-early 2000s
December 16, 2025 at 10:12 AM
jottel.bsky.social
most sauroter findings in Thrace stem from aristocratic cavalrymen graves (besides the two incidental findings)
Map of Thracian Archaeological findings, highlighting the spots, where findings contained sauroter (spear butts)
December 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
jottel.bsky.social
It's not like they already told everyone their plans, is it?
Section of Project 2025: "Privacy Shield. For many years, the European Union (EU) has tried to force U.S. companies operating in Europe to follow its data privacy regulations. Misleading claims in the 2013 Snowden leaks destroyed the initial Safe Harbor Framework that allowed American companies to transfer data across the Atlantic; its successor, the Privacy Shield Framework,45 was struck down by European courts on the grounds that it provides insufficient protections for EU citizens against hypothetical U.S. government surveillance. Those same European courts exempted the intelligence services of EU member states from the standards applied to the U.S., suggesting that trade protectionism may be the real motive behind data privacy regulations."
December 7, 2025 at 11:29 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Makes me immediately think of this one, of a returning warrior with prisoner, both in Attic helmets, and accompanying warrior in pilos
December 1, 2025 at 4:47 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Teaser of the new Dev Diary for our Etruscan faction Volsinii, that will come out with the new update next year.
Game: Rome Total War: Remastered
Mod: Rome Total Realism: Imperium Surrectum

Full Dev Diary can be found here:
discord.com/channels/714...
Images of two of the units that Volsinii will be able to recruit. Images of two of the cavalry units that Volsinii will be able to recruit. Teaser of the starting situation of Volsinii on the Campaign Map as well as its faction banner. Two Screenshots of the new Etruscan units.
November 7, 2025 at 7:33 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Is that what he meant??? I was like „Well yeah, I guess dollars are foldable“
November 4, 2025 at 10:54 PM
jottel.bsky.social
WIP - Odrysian King, 4th century BC
October 27, 2025 at 9:46 AM
jottel.bsky.social
King Rhoimetalkes of Thrace, ca. 40 AD.

Description in the Alt-Text

#RomanHistory #AncientBlueSky #AncientHistory
Reconstruction of King Rhoimetalkes of Thrace, ca. 40 AD. This one is based on the findings from a tomb in Vize (ancient Bizye, one of the major Thracian cities of the 1st century BC into the Roman principate). The tomb is generally dated to the period before the Roman takeover of Thrace after the death of the last King Rhoimetalkes III (ca. 44 AD - Mansel (1940), ‚Les Fouilles de Thrace‘, p. 139). First I wanted to depict the equipment found at Karanovo (Ignatov, Gospodinov (2013)) but it seems to remain unpublished and it’s hard to access literature on the analogous items of Thrace in the first half of the 1st century AD. The quality of the image of the helmet was very good in Mansel (1940), but I relied on the reconstruction of the hybrid armour of Negin (which I found in Wijnhoven (2022), p. 158), but chose to depict the original finding, which I saw in Miks (2015): ‚Eine späteisenzeitliche Spatha in des Kaisers Diensten‘, p. 297. The tomb at Vize did not contain a shield umbo and the ones from Karanovo were unpublished so I chose the bronze umbo from Bryastovets, which is dated more towards the late of the 1st century AD, which I got from the Flickr pictures of Dan Diffendale. For the shield decoration I vaguely chose a number of somewhat contemporary Thracian rider as inspiration, but not a specific one. Last but not least, I‘m no expert on Roman horse equipment, so I chose a minimalist approach, sticking to the drawing of a Tiberio-Claudian harness in M. Bishop‘s (1988): ‚Cavalry Equipment of the Roman Army in the First Century A.D.‘, p. 113 (though I think I remember seeing some similar elements in a burial from Serdica, which would be fitting) and checked the wall painting of Alexandrovo for some colour choices.
October 17, 2025 at 12:50 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Thracian Hoplite, 4th century BC.

Details in the ALT-Description

#ancientbluesky #art
Thracian Hoplite, 4th century BC. When hearing Thrace, most of you probably have in mind the famous Thracians peltasts of the Classical Period, or the rhomphaia-bearing thureophoroi of the Third Macedonian War. This reconstruction, however, is more speculative, working with the vague and unspecified mentions of “Thracian infantry“ or simply “Thracians“ in the literary records of the latter half of the 4th century BC and the ambiguous weapon‘s findings from the area. The shield remains are from Vishegrad Peak, Yambol region (Stoyanov 2015, p. 430), the machaira is from Kabile (also Yambol region), dated to the 4th century BC (Getov 1991, no. 55, in: Velkov, V. Kabile Vol. 2), and the helmet from Zareva Tumulus in the Kazanlak Valley (I did not find literature on it, though the helmet is shown by Archaeology Bulgaria here on Facebook, also dated to the 4th century BC). This type of helmet generally found a lot of popularity in Thrace, particularly in the Rhodopes, though occasionally findings of it - like this one - can be found beyond the mountain range. The scene of a fighting warrior with Phrygian-type helmet and aspis is from a quite obscure wall painting in the Alexandrovo Tomb, which I first saw in Webber‘s Gods of Battle (2011), but since I don’t own the work of Kitov on the Alexandrovo Tomb, I’ve not seen this particularly scene discussed very often. The switch of Thracians from using their native colourful clothing to the typical Macedonian Hellenistic chitons and exomides can be well observed in visual sources like Alexandrovo or Kazanluk. Lastly, the spearhead and sauroter are from the site of Dragoevo castle, which contained a lot of significant military findings, among them 150 spearheads and 7 sauroter (Nankov (2021): Thracian Warfare, p. 229). (Photographs of the items from Dragoevo, among others, can be found in Atanasov, G. (1995), 29-91.
September 29, 2025 at 11:29 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Dardanian warrior of the late 4th century BC
(see alt text for more info)

#ancientbluesky
Last one of „Southern Illyria“ for a while now probably (unless I manage to convince myself to squeeze a horse into this format). What we learn from the written sources about the Dardanian military is basically … nothing at all, except a few mentions here and there. They are often handled a bit as their own thing though broadly understood as being Illyrian or Illyrian-related. This is also reflected in the archaeological findings. In modern Kosovo, where a large part of ancient Dardanian land was located, the archaeological findings of militaria are still pretty sparse, though the record often includes items and elements of the Glasinac-Mat culture. In terms of militaria, these include Illyrian type helmets, small knives, axes and a preference for spears. Due to the scarcity of such findings, however, this piece is a bit cobbled together of items from the second Iron Age period of Dardania (6th-4th c. BC): the helmet is a III-A2 type from Korishë the bracelet is from Lubozhdë the axe necklace from Gadine e Epërme, as is the 18cm large knife the javelin tip (11.1 cm) is from Cernicê and the spear tip is from Përçevë (Due to the hard accessibility of literature on items found in Kosovo, most info of these I got from the doctorate thesis of Premtim Alaj (2020): Les habitats de l‘âge de der sur le territoire de l‘actuel Kossovo) Lastly, this reconstruction builds mainly on one finding: the coinage of Patraos: https://www.coinarchives.com/a/results.php?results=100&search=patara I chose to identify this defeated warrior with a Dardanian though this is of course easy to argue against, hence my long preamble. The small shield, the bare top and the javelin tip finding made me want to depict more of a skirmisher, though a heavy infantryman would’ve also made sense given the information in our sources. Since my last drawing was already a pikeman, however, I went for something more dynamic.
September 20, 2025 at 3:52 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Hellenistic South-Illyrian Hoplite, ca. 3rd-2nd century BC.
The main inspiration for this reconstruction is the belt plate found at Gostilj, on the northern shore of Lake Skadar, which would have been inside the territory of the Illyrian tribe of the Labeates, the centre of power of King Genthios (reign: 180-168 BC). Hoplites among the Illyrians are already mentioned in the army of Kleitos, son of Bardyllis, and Glaukias, the king of the Taulantians at the battle of Pelion against Alexander the Great (335 BC, Arr. Anab. 1.5.12). This is increasingly emphasised in the Hellenistic Period, like in Akarnania (233 BC), where the heavy infantry of the Ardiaean king Agron rout the Aitolian forces due to the “weight of their arms [τὰ βαρέα τῶν ὅπλων.]“.(Pol. 2.3.3), at Sellasia (222 BC), where the Illyrians are paired with the Chalkaspides in alternating lines and pushed the Spartans off the Euas, who “were forced back by the weight of their adversaries‘ weapons and formation [βάρει τοῦ καθοπλισμοῦ καὶ τῆς συντάξεως]“ (Pol. 2.68.9) or on Pharos, where the Romans saw the Illyrians „advancing resolutely and in good order“ (Pol. 3.19.5). A large amount of graves had been excavated at Gostilj and 130 of them recorded by Duro Basler in 1969 in the Bulletin Glasnik Zemaljskog Muzeja Bosne I Hercegovine U Sarajevu (GZM) Vol. 24 (pp. 5-107), which is available online on the website of GZM. The speartip I used here is from grave 125 (approximate original length 300mm) and the sauroter from grave 126 (approximate original length 195mm). The coin is a typical Labeatan coin (Basler: Kenotaph 1/1, p. 44) of the helmet/shield type which - like the belt plate - depicts the Illyrian helmet without crest, and the helmet itself is from Dushk in the hinterland of ancient Epidamnos, dated to ca. the 4th century BC (Neritan Ceka, in: Arme Eggebrecht: Albanien. Schätze aus dem Land der Skipetaren (1988), p. 284).
September 18, 2025 at 8:59 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Illyrian warrior reconstructed from the Bosnian tomb of Arareva Gromila (excavated by Truhelka in 1890); second half of the 6th century BC.
September 14, 2025 at 4:24 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Illyrian Warrior based on findings from Rechitsa, from the 6th-5th century BC

#AncientBlueSky
September 13, 2025 at 8:02 PM
jottel.bsky.social
Last point: M. Bishop had noticed on some Roman tombstones that there are sometimes undergarments. They can’t really be called „padding“ but it might just be thicker wool and they don’t seem to be too common (though this does concern the principate, but I do think it worthwhile wo mention)
By Mike Bishop on Flickr: „Bonn: Unidentified infantryman A colour-keyed interpretation of the tombstone (deliberately coloured so as to avoid controversies!). Robinson (1975, Pl.244) evidently saw this as GREEN=tunic, BLUE=armour, and RED=surcoat. An alternative interpretation would be GREEN=tunic, BLUE=arming doublet, and RED=armour. Despite Robinson's contention that mail armour was depicted in paint on these Rhineland tombstones, bafflingly he inverted this for reliefs like this one and that of Firmus, seeing the tassels as mail and the plain area as a surcoat. Robinson, H.R. The Armour of Imperial Rome, (London 1975)“ Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thearmaturapress/6769593891/in/album-72157594512121911/
August 27, 2025 at 7:59 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Yeah, very common in the crusader bible and contemporary depictions. Mail is constructed to be skintight and textile armour often goes over it. You still have the protectiveness of both. As Roman mail is not skintight but more like a T&Y, there may be some wiggle room but it‘d still add more weight
August 27, 2025 at 7:43 AM
jottel.bsky.social
It’s hard to see on the soldier‘s relief depending on how the statue is illuminated, but you can make it out in higher res pictures
August 27, 2025 at 7:25 AM
jottel.bsky.social
There’s also a German medieval history community I follow who also argue against the common wisdom that there always had to be padding worn under mail. But often depictions of foot soldiers show mail close to the body or only over a tunic before 14th c. which makes sense in a way:
August 27, 2025 at 6:55 AM
jottel.bsky.social
@nakhthor.bsky.social @veliteaquila.bsky.social in view of later reliefs like the so-called Ahenobarbus relief or Estepa statue of the 1st century BC, nothing but a tunic would be worn under it. The Etruscan reliefs might be a case of cavalrymen wearing something under it for decorative purposes
August 27, 2025 at 6:30 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Illyrian Warrior from the Dassaretis, 4th-3rd century BC.
August 21, 2025 at 8:22 PM
jottel.bsky.social
July 22, 2025 at 6:10 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Alternatively
July 15, 2025 at 10:05 AM
jottel.bsky.social
@veliteaquila.bsky.social
A collection
July 9, 2025 at 9:03 PM
jottel.bsky.social
@equipmentroman.bsky.social Poux in his paper on Alesia mentions pieces that are similar to buckles from a Roman segmentata. Looking at the Kalkriese armour, I do see it. He proposed a leather prototype but I was wondering if it was an iron version with most of the iron recovered post-battle?
June 24, 2025 at 6:55 AM
jottel.bsky.social
Who do I call to talk about the weird manipular army system in Livy 8.8? 😄

It takes a few maybes and emendations to add up but then one could perhaps make it make sense

#AncientBlueSky
A drawing that perhaps demonstrates a possible solution to the question how to make Livy‘s manipular army system in 8.8 to „add up“
June 19, 2025 at 5:26 PM