[Regia-NA] The Nasal: What's it for?

[rmhowe]

Jack Garrett wrote:
> Another point (a pun, that) about nasals.  Wearing a morien is a better 
> choice at Renaissance Faires when one attempts to drink from a cup than 
> wearing a helmet with a nasal one has gotten used to wearing.  Been 
> there, dipped that :-)
>  
> Jack/Ottar

It made me wonder if Jimmy Durante ever got a clean glass of beer.
I presume the signature head shake was learned shaking the
foam off. Haa-chaa-chaa-cha! as he would say.

A couple of the Marx brothers had similar problems, but with hair.

When it rains, and it drips at the low spot on the nasal - can you
stick your lower lip out far enough to get some fresh water?

Actually, the raised crests on morions and the raised crest going
up the top center of the earlier helmets provided a thickened protection
from an overhead blow that could be utilized at the last moment with a 
head turn.

The Romans had a horizontal thickened brim riveted on the ends
over the forehead for extra protection. As high as it was it couldn't
have provided much shade for the eyes on most of the helmets I have 
seen, or even a rain guard. I expect it probably pivoted a bit for 
cleaning and polishing. But if you examine most of their later
imperial helmets you will see a small rim sticking out over the ears
for protection. I have Roman Imperial Armour by H. Russell Robinson
and some of the  Journals of Roman Military Equipment Studies.
At least the ones with the siege engine stuff in them. There is a new
little book entitled Roman Artillery recently put out by Shirebooks.com
that covers one man's 30 year study and reconstruction of smaller
roman catapults and scorpions, and I recently saw a program on them
but they didn't appear to have very much power (as he constructed
them).  Nothing like what I have read of being used at Maiden
Castle for example. I've ordered it. The American distributor
for Shirebooks looks ridiculously expensive though.

I have P.G.E. Schramm's 1918 book on the Roman artillery from
Saalzburg and the Limes (a string of Roman frontier forts in
Germany) and he did a better job. Kaiser Wilhelm visited to see his
results.  The smaller siege engines are still extant, the larger
were destroyed in WWII. Dieter Baatz has a webpage on Roman (and
Greek if I recall) siege engines and he's reinterpreted Schramm a
bit. He's an archaeologist at Saalzburg too. Schramm was a German
artillery officer. Some smaller catapults were designed using
springs in WWI to throw grenades between the trenches, something
mortars have made much more efficient these days.

Magnus