Sunday, July 10, 2011

Ancient Iranian horsemen - kantuš

Salve,
a little sketch of ancient - Achaemenid - Iranian horseman ''asabāri,''  -
one of them is wearing a kantuš or a Median robe, known by it's Greek name as kandys (candys)
( Ormond Dalton: ''which had the peculiarity that the long narrow sleeves were not used but hung loose on either side like the sleeve of a hussar's jacket'') , over his scales armor.

Some time ago a Hungarian researcher (V. Gerves-Molnar in her study of szür-  ancient Hungarian coat) from Canada put forth a claim that kantuš was a ancestor to Hungarian and Polish ''kontusz'', and this hypothesis has not found fertile ground yet amongst the Polish historians of the Polish national costume (yet other picked it up (eg  Tullia Linders '' The Kandys in Greece and Persia'' - 1984),
But professor Nick Sekunda embraced it in his book The Persian Army 560-330 BC  when talking about the kantuš.
Another Hungarian researcher A. Gaborjan,  when studying other Hungarian coats - ''daroc'' and ''guba,'' pointed to their relationship with the ancient East, and probable Persian influences via Turkish borrowings of Persian fashions etc.

No comments: