In the saddle, on horseback - The art of war of the conquest-era Magyars - a film

 Salvete Omnes,

X century Magyar horse archer from Basilica Patriarcale (Aquileia)

a short entry - 
there is an amazing production to be watched on the web.
Namely, Digitalis Legendarium, from Hungary, produced a 28 minutes film titled:
In the saddle, on horseback - The art of war of the conquest-era Magyars. - link here. 

a screen shot - 

It is breathtaking presentation of the Magyar warriors and their military equipment in a very short, beautifully shot and presented video production. We get to see the bowmaking - arrows, recurve Hungarian bow, quivers, and bowcases, including straightening the arrow shafts with a special but simple device ; iron smithing , forging sabres and making them beautiful, making helmets and chainmail etc
We get to see the display of historic horsemanship & horse archery, and spear, battleax, and sword skills while astride the fabulous Hungarian horses. 
Then there is a segment on Magyar miltary organisation, strategy, tactics, and a short story of their campaigning in the early X century Italy etc. 
at the end we get a list of archaeological sites  from where this film reconstructed objects originated.  

enjoy 
ps
the makers of these Netflix,Disney or Amazon etc films and movies could learn a thing or two about how to show history and make it amazingly accurate and pleasing to the eye too.. alas, they gave us the horrible Witcher, Rings of Power and some other ridiculous imagery of the viking or some other fantasy.. 

Valete

Orava Castle and Juraj Gyorgy Thurzo

Salvete Omnes,

 

today we shall canter to one of the most picturesque places in Slovakia, where on a high rock above the Orava River there is a beautiful castle (very detailed history in Polish here). Known as Arwa or Orava, 

 

this castle became the seat of the Thurzo family, when Ferenec Frantisek Thurzo, a bishop of Nitra in Kingdom of Hungary, fell in love with a daughter of Mikulas Kostka/Kosztka,  left the priesthood and became thus the father of the Thurzo line from Orava.

The castle has inspired many artists - like our Polish Eljasz Radzikowski etc.

Thurzo coat of arms

bishop Ferenc Fratisek Thurzo coat of art, father of Gyorgy

Inside the castle there are some interesting and beautiful elements worth our glance or two...

 

Including this funerary monument to Gyorgy Juraj Thurzo, a power magnate of the Upper Hungary as Slovakia was known then, and between 1609-1616AD Thurzo was the palatine of Hungary.

sir Gyorgy aka George was a famous warrior and commander. In this monument he appears as a winged hussar commander

a little bit of a side view

a closeup on the shishak helmet, sabre hilt and the sabre belt, and gilded finishing of his chain-mail sleeve

Comes Gyorgy Juraj Thurzo on horseback - a print from the XVII century

in this print we see the splendor of this Hungarian nobleman's horse gear and also a horseman pick, a weapon going back to the Scythians and horse mounted warriors of Eurasia

more photos here.

From the inside of the castle come this beautiful imagery of Saint George fighting the dragon,

Saint George appears to be armed and armored like a typical winged hussar of the period, 2nd half of the XVI, early XVII century 

 

while this detail above, of a wall painting shows a hunting scenes (with dogs, falconry, with a short boar spear chasing wild boar) ,  perhaps comes from an earlier period.

Valete

How Did Roman Cataphracts Go To War? DOCUMENTARY

 Salvete Omnes,
a short entry

I would like to invite you to watch this production  on the ancient  Roman Cataphract, his horse and  equipment .
From Invicta - How Did Roman Cataphracts Go To War? 

comparable armored riders aka cataphracts (albeit with much different saddles) from across the Eurasian continent of the Chinese Northern dyansties -
the Northern Wei

 

and Nortehrn Qi 

 

and the Parthian and  Sassanid Persian Caathracts:

 

valete!

Aleksander Lesser - drawings of East-Central European arms and armor

 Salvete Omnes,

 

a short entry -  various drawings by a Jewish-Polish painter and draughtsman Aleksander Lesser , pre-Jan Matejko historical painter, among others he was a student of the German Nazarene movement artists like Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld et al. 

These drawings represent pan Aleksander's research within the  various arms and armor collections in Europe of his age. As he was a Polish historian-artist and researcher - they represent mostly items related to the  Polish-Lithuanian and Hungarian history of the early modern period. Karacena, chain-mail and bechter (mail and plate armor) armor, shishak style helmets, swords and even a winged hussar kopia.

a bechter

a karacena armor suit

Jan III Sobieski karacena armor

 bechter cuirass

a karacena armor suite

a szabla/sabre and a palasch

a pallasch

a koncerz

a kopia hussarska, hussar lance, hussar lance pennon

Pan Lesser studied old paintings eg - his sketches

you can explore these and other drawings and paintings via Polish National  Museum digital platform - Aleksander Lesser.

Valete