 So far, I've made a decent collection of Bronze Age weaponry, but they won't be complete without also exploring some of the defenses employed for protection against them. So enlisting some extra help in this video will be attempting to produce a form of ancient body armor supposedly used by conquerors like Alexander the Great by harnessing the power of a small flowering plant, the Flax Plant. Everything we use comes from 8,000 generations of collective innovation and discovery, but could an average person figure it all out themselves and work their way from the Stone Age to today? That's a question we're exploring. Each week, I try to take the next step forward in human history. My name is Andy and this is how to make everything. Be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next step in this journey. But first, speaking of protection, if you've been watching for a while, you know that sometimes I risk life in limb in the process of completing my projects. Though I don't have life insurance yet, perhaps with everything going on in the world, it might be a good time to consider it. Policy Genius compares quotes from the top life insurance companies in one place, it takes just a few minutes to compare quotes from the top insurers to find your best price. This doesn't just save a lot of legwork, you could save $1500 or more a year by using Policy Genius to compare life insurance policies. Since 2014, they've helped over 30 million people shop for life insurance and they've placed 45 billion in coverage. Applying online only takes a few minutes and it's really easy. You just have to answer a few personal questions before getting your quotes. Once you apply, the Policy Genius team will handle all the paperwork and red tape for free. So if you hit on any speed bumps during the application process, they'll be there to take care of everything. Policy Genius will find you the best rate and handle the process completely. They'll get you and your family protected and hopefully give you one less thing to worry about, so you can go back to pursuing your passion. If you're one of the many people looking to buy life insurance right now, but you aren't sure where to start, head to policygenius.com and see how they can help you. Since we started the reset, there have been two major technologies that have been needed to be unlocked in our tech tree that we've been putting off, textiles and leather. Two topics I've now covered multiple times in past videos and want to explore again with the new restrictions of the reset rules. My past efforts have revealed that this textile industry is easily one of the most labor intensive processes and that was using modern tools. So now pushing the challenge even further and needing to make the tools ourselves, the initial goal is going to be unlocking these technologies by producing a functional quantity of the items, allowing us to supplement our supply with larger quantities for larger goals, allowing us to move forward without getting stuck in an endless grind. You realize this is only half the process. Half of the weaving process or not? Half of the warping process. Well, first up let's get some leather tanning. I've previously covered a few different methods in the past, bark tanning with deer hide and brain tanning pig hide, using eggs instead of a brain. This time I wanted to try a different method, but with the most common type of leather, cow. Alright, so for a source of leather went to a local butcher shop to try and get some of their leftover leather from one of their cows they killed, so we don't have to kill our own. Didn't really specify what we wanted, like this is literally their face peeled off. I think they're inside out. Yeah, it's pretty disgusting. We have it now, so I guess we got to use it. So I'm going to try and tan these using a method called alum tanning, which is the compound called alum. This is a method similar to what was used by Romans pretty often and should hopefully give us a kind of a wider tanned leather. Some kind of electric stuff here. The alum mineral is mixed with salt, olive oil, egg yolks, and flour to make a nice gooey paste that you can almost bake into a cake. Then they are left to tan for several weeks. Now for the extra challenging process of making textiles. First I need to grow the flax. Over the past summer they grew into short little bushes with small pretty little flowers on them. As they progressed they turned into pods, continuing the flax seeds, something we've already been able to put to use in a few projects before. But for textiles it's the stocks I'm after. I ended up growing two slightly different varieties of flax, which were ready to harvest at different times. So I had to harvest them twice. Once harvested the next process is called rutting, where you let them start to decompose, which helps separate the inner core from the outer core we're after. While they sit and ret, let's repair some tools for the next process. For the last project involving cloth making, I was able to get some extra assistance with Annalise to help construct a loom. But at the beginning of the year, she moved on to pursue a job more aligned with her personal goals, and we've been in the process of looking for a potential replacement sense. But in the middle of that process, the global pandemic of COVID-19 struck, and we decided to split up these tasks between the couple of potential candidates and see how well they handled the difficult challenges of this job. I have a tattoo of a corn dog, so you know I'm real. Hi, my name is Lauren. I'm here with this flax and how to make everything to teach you how to heckle. So this is a heckle. It looks like a medieval toothbrush, but it's not. We're going to be making one from scratch, casting bronze out of beeswax. And eventually when we make something similar, we're going to be taking the flax and raking it through the spikes to make a soft material that we can make clothing out of. So hopefully it works, and we'll be able to make like a shirt, pants, shorts, whatever we feel like. What? I hate myself. Oh my god, maybe it'll work still. Well, I may as well use that. Oh my gosh, this looks so nerve-wracking. This looks like a cheap advertisement for Monster. My stick broke. Perfect heckle. Don't look at it. Oh my god. Why do I want to touch it so bad? Meanwhile, for the upcoming weaving portions, Kate started to construct the new loom, a warp-weighted loom. Nature, an iron chair. It's like urban wicker man. We're going to make a sacrifice to the gods. One of the oldest and earliest looms, dating back well into the Neolithic era, its construction is pretty straightforward. Warp loom. This is what I've got so far. This will be the frame. It's basically two uprights, a wide crotch at the top. The cloth beam, which is the straightest bit of wood you can find. I'll be cutting off either end and shaving this down so it's nice and smooth. This is what the cloth will be hanging from. And then I can secure it around here with a bit of rope, maybe some small pegs. See what it needs. At the bottom we've got the biggest piece of wood will be the shed bar. That is what half the fibers will drape over while the other half will be dangling behind, weighted with our loom weights. Please don't fall apart. Please don't fall apart. Please don't fall apart. 5,000 years ago they would have no way of knowing if this was level. So, bad? Hello! Look at that! Boom! Shakalaka! With just enough lead time, we were able to get both of them prepared and set up just in time as our state went into full lockdown and shelter in place. And they were able to continue forward from home. This is Winky. Winky! She's been helping. All right, let's go! Okay. Okay, so first I guess we have to take this and break it up. All the short stuff and hopefully we'll just leave behind the longer fibers. Welcome to my home. That's Pluto. Now just to get the shape I'm going to add my cloth theme. One more to secure. Bash them into place. Taking the heckled flocks from Lauren, Kate could then spin it into a thread with a drop spindle and start weaving. So now we're at the point where we gotta string this thing up. I hope the cat doesn't attack this. String one. Just have to do that about a shoe for 20 more times. My step today is separate out each individual strand. I can then string all my little bits of string, attaching each individual one to the heddle bar using these little shorter strips of wax thread. My shuttle here, which I will use to pass through the loom, which will go through the warp, which is the threads going vertically. Yeah, so that's the last of that added to my shuttle. Sew a little bit. This is going to be a shear. This is about an hour's worth of weaving. It is a much, much tighter weave than I was getting initially. I'm pretty proud of what I've made. Her name is Kindling. I did get a panel the width I wanted, but not the quality I wanted, but a much narrower panel of fabric. This, shockingly, is roughly half the same amount of warp, just scrunched very closely together. And I think it's working a lot better. What I really want out of this is to make something comparable to what this, this material, the style of loom could make in the part of the bronze age that we're in. So yeah, I'm just going to spend the day power weaving, possibly a bell tour headband out of this guy. One is, you know, a rustic table setting. And then I've got this little guy, which is not much of it, but I'm very proud of it. This is a monumental thing for humans to have figured out. Thanks to Kate and Lauren, we were able to finally unlock textiles. From the beginning, clothing has been about protection from the sun or the cooled or from general abuse from the environment. The Linnothorax squishes the limits of that protective ability by utilizing multiple layers of linen glued together with animal fat to provide armor to the wearer against the toughest weapons the bronze and iron age could throw at it. Evidence of its existence is actually pretty scant though, as it's nearly entirely biodegradable, leaving some to question if it was actually even made from linen itself. Its earliest mention is in the Iliad, suggesting it may have been used as early as a Trojan War, but most likely became popular in the Mediterranean world in the 7th and 6th century BCE. It's believed its lighter and more flexible material made it more popular than existing metal armor, especially in hot-air climates, while providing comparable protection. In our last video, I got to meet Matt, an armor maker that showed me some of the armor that would have possibly been worn in the Trojan War, and followed up with him to ask if he knew anything about the Linnothorax. I'm Matt Poitras. I run a business called MP Filmcraft, which is a production company slash props and costume company. I have experience in making a lot of different armors throughout the ages and cultures, and anything kind of varying from ancient Mycenaean Greek times to up until about the Crusades. Linnothorax armor is a armor that's constructed of layers of linen. Usually 12 to 20 layers of linen go into the construction of a set. The way I do it is a little differently. I haven't actually recreated one with the purposes of like experimental archaeology because I haven't really wanted to put the linen together, so usually what I do is I do two to three layers of linen on the surface of it, and then I do a backing of like Vegtan and Calhide. This is an example of one right here that's made out of just a couple layers of linen actually, and then the rest of it's leather, and then the belly is made out of steel scales. The hoplites were really known for wearing them. Originally it was mentioned in the Illumin Odyssey by Homer as Ajax the Lesser was wearing it, not to be confused with the regular Ajax, the dishwashing detergent. Probably in the last few years I've made three to 40. For various purposes I sold many. I've done a couple of custom orders for clients. I've did a film called Blood of the King, kind of a response to seeing 300 and wanting to see something more historically costumed. In Hollywood it hasn't been used a whole lot, although the movie Alexander by Oliver Stone used the Linnothorax a lot. Alexander was wearing it for the majority of the time. Thank you very much for watching. Goodbye. Now back out of lockdown, start building our own Linnothorax. Unfortunately with everything else going the world, things didn't end up working out with Kate, so we move forward with Lauren. I rode it out with the charcoal, made a little pattern, and I'm going to cut out 15 of these because in order to be safe you need to be layered. Nope. Okay. Bind something else, so we got to get something bigger. I think I'll start at a straighter line, make it easier for myself, just kind of saw back and forth, cut this pattern out. Then for some pig fat, it's been in my freezer since we made soap from it several years ago. All right, the next step in making the Linnothorax is, what was that right? Is it lino? Lino. Lino. Okay. The next step in making the Linnothorax is taking the pig fat that we've boiled and rendered into a nice layer and sticking them all together to make them stick. Awful. Oh yeah, that's nice. Okay, yep, just a thin layer through the whole thing. It's like peanut butter. Yeah, it isn't. Yeah, it kind of looks like almond butter. Wouldn't use it in the same way. I'll probably need more than I thought. I don't see how this is going to be like protective, but... Get it all to the edges. Once it's all layered out, we'll insert the second layer. So there's gonna be 15 layers. I'm trying to make sure that I can line it up as good as I can. Lovely. 15 more to go. Hey, all the 15 layers are stacked, lined with the fat, and now we're on to the next one. Beautiful. Two hours later, now only four more. So this is the first layer. I will do this four more times and absolutely break my arm. And then Andy's got a nice skirt. Okay, so I just found out that this isn't called a skirt, it's actually called a Petrage's, which I am definitely pronouncing right. How's it pronounced? Petrages? Petrages. Okay, so the P is silent, so tear-a-gees. Tear-a-gees. All right, so now for our second tear of tear-a-gees. Oh god, I'm funny. Done. That is cool. Now for the shoulder straps, and we're gonna do the exact same thing. Take each layer, put a thin layer of lard between them to secure them all together. Let's go. So I just got everything wrapped up. We're gonna let it dry out and see if it hardens and is a protective barrier, and I'm gonna get all the fat out of my nails. With the cloth pieces all set, now it's time to start putting it together. But first, let's check out those morbid cowheads and see if they actually got preserved. I've been several months now left these two tan and surprisingly have not rotten because that means they've been preserved. They've gotten rock hard though, not gotten any easier to use. I did take one of these, cut it open, and then I've been working it with a bit of oil to soften it up. It's still pretty stiff, which actually works pretty good for the purpose of armor that we're going for. I managed to get at least a small piece of functional leather from each of these heads. It is leather. It's not a huge quantity, probably five or six of these out of it, so probably enough to make like a another really weird football, less hairy this time. For now, I'm going to consider this unlocking the technology of leather making. It's something we've done a few times with different animals and different methods. Trying to find an actual source of cow, but we don't have to kill a whole cow. It's surprisingly difficult if anybody happens to have a source for that, let us know. So we're gonna try this again a little bit better. Otherwise, I think we're gonna move on to supplementing it with some store-bought so we can finish up the line of thorax. Here it is, the completed and assembled armor. Thanks to the help of Kate and Lauren, I was able to unlock the technologies, textiles, and leather to make this and then construct the lino thorax. Got 15 layers of linen mixed with pig fat that should hopefully give me protection against anything an opponent is going to throw at me. Ended up being a huge pain to actually assemble everything just because of it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. It's hard to get through. It's hard to cut. It's hard to stab. It's hard to drill. It's hard to do pretty much anything to it. It is very resistant, allows a lot of mobility, and I imagine it's a lot cooler when you're out in the sun than a tin can. Surprise how heavy it is because it was chosen supposedly because it's a little bit lighter than actual metal armor, but this is probably pretty comparable to the armor that Matt had me try before. It might still be wet. I'm not sure what happens with the fat. It might dry out and cure a little bit better. We'll see what happens. It might start to rot. I'm not sure. It's very greasy. I'm very well moisturized. I can tell you that. A big debate about it is that linen wasn't cheap. Textiles have always been labor intensive. There's a question of if this is worth all the the cost of the linen that goes into it, but for how much this actually costs ourselves. If we hadn't done the whole unlocking and tried to actually make all the fabric we used, Kate and Lauren would have needed to repeat the entire process at least 50 more times to yield a high enough amount of fabric to make this lino thorax. Multiplying all the numbers to add up for that to be 16 weeks of full-time work and if paid at today's minimum wage, just producing the material for it alone would cost nearly $6,000. So this technology is actually somewhat similar to modern Kevlar in the terms of a tight knit cloth in multiple layers that can fight protection that is lighter than a metal option. So we're going to put this to the test and see how well it handles everything. You're going to try throwing all the Bronze Age weapons we have at it, our swords, our spears, our atletal, our bow and arrow, and then we're going to try it with some modern technology too and see if theoretically you could stop a bullet using this technology, even if it's just a little bit thicker. All right, so let's go to the next video. Thank you to all of our supporters on Patreon. Thanks for watching.