The Historically Accurate Greek Armors of Dimitrios Katsikis (Interview)

It’s a sunny Thursday morning, and I find myself holding a recreation of an ancient Greek helmet handcrafted by Dimitrios Katsikis, known online as the “modern Hephaestus.” His workspace in Spata, Athens, is smaller and darker than I expected, but I guess that sun is a luxury if you want to work with fire and metal. The space is divided into the office, where he spends time researching ancient armor, and the forge, where fire meets metal and the ancient designs come to life.

Dimitrios Katsikis is a self-taught metal worker passionate about antiquity. According to his website—Hellenic Armors—he has recreated a wide variety of protective military gear ranging from the 15th century BCE to the 15th century CE. His work includes Mycenean armor, bell and muscled cuirasses, linen linothoraxes of the Classical Greek period, and later period armor of the Military Saints of the Eastern Roman Empire. He claims to be the sole person in Greece able to reproduce these armors according to the “traditional method” without the use of modern technological means or materials. Everything is meticulously crafted using metal sheets, fire, anvils, and hammers; “no cheating,” he declares. I asked if he describes what he does as experimental archaeology, he replied: “At some point, this work is no longer experimental. If you build the Parthenon from scratch, it’s art, not an experiment.”

Dimitrios is undoubtedly an interesting case. Even though he studied Agricultural Biotechnology in Athens and earned his master’s at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, he decided to pursue an old passion of his:

“I was always interested in understanding how the things of the past were made. From a young age, I looked at the ancient Greek statues and temples and wondered how they made this.”

At Wageningen, he realized that he could access collections related to history and archaeology in the university library. This reignited his interest in the art of ancient civilizations: Roman, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian, but mainly Greek. However, this time, he was learning about these cultures through an academic lens, not through fiction and popular history.

“I was interested in the practical aspects of art. I asked myself how ancient sculpture related to architecture and painting or why helmets were so luxurious. An experience that marked me back then, was visiting the Royal Armouries in London. I was in awe when I saw all these majestic and meticulously crafted armor. I wondered: Why have I not seen something similar in Greece? Why are there no Eastern Roman [Byzantine] armors exhibited like this in Athens.” 

By the time he graduated, he had read everything he could find about ancient Greek warfare and armor. Upon returning to Athens, he was ready to take things to the next level and actualize his first project: to bring the Byzantine armor of a military saint to life. However, things were not easy.

“I forgot about everything… I was obsessed… I didn’t want to get a job before completing this armor. I read everything I could about Byzantine protective gear and experimented with whatever I could find. It was hard; I didn’t know where to begin. No one had done what I wanted to do, so I had to start from scratch. I was responsible for everything: finding metals (iron), leathers, learning how to process the materials, and how long to fire them to get the desired result.”

After creating his first Byzantine armor, he reached out to museums and archaeologists without success. “No one in Greece was interested,” he says. Then he sent an email to various foreign institutions, and a reply came in 2010 from the Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, which exhibited three of Dimitrios’ Byzantine armors as part of an international Byzantine Studies symposium. “Everyone I was reading was there,” says Dimitrios. “I stayed there for ten days and this was history; it was the first official exhibition of Hellenic armors ever made.” Since then, Dimitrios’ works have been exhibited in multiple museums, notably the Herakleidon Museum in Athens and the Land Museum & Park Kalkriese in Osnabrück.

Dimitrios is frustrated that his work has not received attention in his country. Even after this first exhibition, there was no publicity, and it seemed like there was no hope on the horizon. Still, he continued pursuing his passion, and over the years, he expanded his collection. From Byzantine armors, he moved to Mycenean and Classical. Each period had its own demands. “You need to get into the mind of the creator. Different periods demand different approaches from you.”

Dimitrios is self-taught in his art and claims to have trained himself in a technology that has been lost for centuries. He certainly has struggled to learn how to make ancient armor and seems to hold his art in high esteem: 

“These armors were what supercars are today. They were made for the elites. It was an honor to own one. They were like jewelry for men. They were expensive, only for the rich, and carried a metaphysical symbolism that united the wearer with the divine. In some cases, such as the muscular cuirasses of classical Greece, which imitated the muscular form of statues, aesthetics were more important than functionality and often, it was aesthetics that dictated the form. People were obsessed with their armor back then. It was important to go to battle looking as an ideal male form, looking perfect, just like a statue. That was in Classical times. In Mycenean times, these elegant aesthetics were not a priority but over time things led to the muscular cuirasses of Classical Greece.”

His process is a tedious one. In his words: 

“To recreate an armor, the safest and easiest guide is a photo of an existing archaeological find or museum exhibit. With the internet, it’s relatively easy to find a good photo these days. That’s the easiest way. However, if such a photo does not exist, then you may find inspiration in whatever you can, even if it is something as small as this graffiti [he shows me an ancient graffiti from Dura Europos depicting a Sassanian soldier]. This way is more difficult because it poses the question of turning such a little out-of-proportion sketch into a three-dimensional object. To do that, you must have mastered not only the materials but also the human body because my armors are made to be worn by humans, not just exhibited. To succeed, you must be able to extract the information that matters from what you have at your disposal to create an armor that’s ergonomic, wearable, and close to the art and culture of its time. You must have achieved a level of familiarity with the culture and its art.”

In the next stage, Dimitrios uses the knowledge he has gathered from his research to design rough sketches of the armor.

“I create some initial sketches of how the armor could look like. I do that to give form to my thoughts.”

The next stage is acquiring the right materials, and then comes the manual labor. Using various custom-made anvils and his collection of hammers, he softens the metal with fire and begins carefully hitting it until it starts to take the desired shape.

The hammering phase takes days. A bit every day, but not more than the metal can handle. He needs to avoid breaking the thin sheets of metal that his delicate work requires. As you can imagine, this phase is the most difficult and time-consuming.

“In sculpture, you work by removing material to get the desired result. Here, the metal is shaped by becoming soft with fire. You free shape everything. It’s like a philologist, who, after years of education, understands the structure of the language. I have strived to understand how the craftsmen used to think and I have tried to get into their minds.”

Dimitrios is confident that no one in Greece can produce the same quality of work as him.

“Today in Greece, very few people are interested in studying metalwork because the art of the metalworker was lost due to the machines and the import of foreign goods. This didn’t happen with other materials, such as marble sculpture. No one in Greece can do what I do. I have no colleagues.”

When I asked him why there was no one else doing the same job as him, he replied, “It’s all about the state’s priorities. Does the state find it important for craftsmen to continue practicing these arts? We live in the age of mobile phones and AI. This work (traditional metalwork) is a form of manual labor and most young people see it as hard and unappealing due to its difficulty. It’s out of fashion.”

After 15 years, Dimitrios feels that his work is finally (almost) complete.

“I feel like I have self-exorcised the ‘demons’ that got into me years ago and made me pursue this passion for creating these works of art, a passion that cannot be interpreted with logic. After 15 years, I have completed my collection. I can create everything from the Mycenean to Byzantine times, and this makes me feel complete. At one point, I felt that I would not be able to master this art, that something would happen and my work would be left incomplete. However, I made it and my journey is almost complete. I now feel like I am part of the civilization that I studied, I am not part only playing a part in preserving its memory but also in preserving the civilization.” 

Dimitrios tells me that his audience is international and that he feels a sense of responsibility towards them.

“I want to be honest with my audience because the people who follow my art are the ones who judge it. Being honest means no cheating and being faithful to the traditional method… AI and technology now threaten all artists. The interest in handmade art will not be lost, but only a few will be able to continue creating with the traditional method.”

Dimitrios’ work has received a lot of attention on social media. He explains that images of his work online have influenced other artists and their work, in turn influencing images of ancient Greece and the public’s imagination.

“I receive many messages today. There is a lot of love for my work. People find my website and my work keeps going viral. It is good because I create historically accurate armors and my work helps restore our vision of how ancient Greece would look like. The fact that my website ranks first in Google search queries related to ancient Greek armors creates a chain reaction. Artists, from graphic designers to video game creators, who want to create art about ancient Greece will inevitably bump on my website and will reproduce the armors as they see them there, many times without credit.”

Dimitrios doubts that big productions are interested in historical accuracy. However, he sees a change in the public’s attitude.

“I see people online commenting below movie trailers about the accuracy of the depicted clothing and armor. The Internet has familiarized the audience with more true-to-life depictions. A while ago, one illustrator asked me to use an image of my Mycenean armor to create a more accurate depiction of Brad Pitt’s Achilles from the movie Troy (2004). The image went viral, and even Eric Bana, who played Hector in the movie, replied that that’s how armors should be in the next films.” 

Dimitrios is now thinking about his legacy. He wants to write a book at some point and promote his work with exhibitions so that the public can access it. He is also thinking of a series of workshops for tourists who wish to see how armors were made in antiquity.