Posted on 09/13/2015 12:59:29 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Two pieces of iron armor -- reportedly first found in the desert of West Texas about 150 years ago -- have recently been analyzed by scientists in Nebraska, where the artifacts have been sitting for decades in museum storage.
Archaeologists have been able to determine that some of the armor's components are at least 200 years old, but details about who made it, who wore it, and where exactly it came from remain a total mystery.
"I don't know where this thing came from," said Dr. Peter Bleed, a University of Nebraska archaeologist who led the study.
"I hope researchers will look for more evidence about this."
Bleed supervised two anthropology students at the University of Nebraska -- Lindsay Long and Jessica Long, who are now graduate students at other institutions -- in their investigation of the armor as a research project.
The Nebraska History Museum acquired the armor in 1990, consisting of a black helmet and a neck covering called a gorget, made of a cotton twill backing covered with small iron scales.
But despite its storied past, the artifact -- and the lore that came with it -- had never been thoroughly studied.
"I thought the armor itself deserved to be documented, in part because it had been in a private collection since the 1890s," Bleed said.
The few records of the armor that exist came from U.S. cavalry officer and anthropologist Capt. John Gregory Bourke, who was given the gorget, helmet, and a breast- and backplate in 1870, from an army doctor who claimed to have found them "enclosing the bones of a man in the arid country between the waters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos."
(Excerpt) Read more at westerndigs.org ...
The Bourke armor helmet (Courtesy Bleed et al., used with permission)
The gorget of the Bourke armor consists of cotton twill backing covered in iron scales. The wooden crosspiece was added by Capt. Bourke so he could mount it on the wall as a conversation piece. (Photo courtesy Bleed et al., used with permission)
A rear view of the gorget shows the cotton twill backing. (Photo courtesy Bleed et al., used with permission)
Might fit on a child’s head.
/johnny
Whoa! Nice find!
Perhaps Pizarro lost one of his men to a walkabout...
Plains Indians were known to have acquired armor, so it could have been taken from a Spanish soldier or traded for, and ended up far from any Spanish outpost. There was, I believe, a Kiowa chief named Iron Jacket because he wore either some kind of Spanish half-armor or chain mail.
Interesting that the helmet is open at the top. To let the heat escape, I presume.
Either that or the helmet belonged to a unicorn.
Kardashians?
Seems odd to make a helmet and leave a round hole on the top. I wonder if there was a decorative metal cap or peak that’s now missing.
Ancient aliens! Knights Templar! Vikings! Make up your own story. That stuff looks to be in pretty good shape for having lain in the dirt for centuries.
John Bourke who wrote,,
On the Border with Crook
Cool.
They’re wrong. They’re much older than a few hundred years. These artifacts are from the battles Joseph Smith talked about. He just missed the location by a few thousand miles. /s
Since West/Southwest Texas and New Mexico was already home to Spanish ranchers from Mexico in the mid-late 1700s-my ancestors were some of them-it would seem logical that explorers and others were wandering around there many, many years earlier exploring, trading with the native tribes for both needed items and stuff they could trade or sell to someone else-and mapping-those settlers coming from Mexico certainly had to have maps to find where in that huge place their land was located and how to get there.
I’ll bet there is a ton of stuff like this hidden away in private collections all over the US-I hope more gets found- too bad those bits of armor can’t talk-that would be enough stories for a lot of nights by the fire...
Quite a few Spanish explorers
wandering about seaching for Cities of Gold.
He’s from France not Spain.
Send it over to the Jeffersonian. Dr. Hodgins will probably be able to tell you exactly where the iron ore came from that was used to make it.
A Kardashian gorget would be made from Spandex - I’m sure. Not cotton twill.
That happens a lot to OOPARTS (OutOfPlaceParts) when they don't conform to the prevailing theories. Too many professors/scientists have made a career out of supporting the status quo and when something disproving it pops up, it is either called "a religious object" and dismissed or "an anomaly" and hidden away in the museum basement.
I was a virtual pen pal with a gal up in Canada, who had a college friend aspiring to be an archaeologist. She who went on a dig, found an Oopart and excitedly brought it to the project leader. He told her that if she ever wanted a career in that discipline, to just shut up about her find. I never found out what the "thing" was.
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