I’m not here to tell you whether giants are real or not real. Rather I'm going to discuss a single piece of evidence related to claims about giants: the suit of armor on display at Schloss Ambras. The picture posted above is presented as evidence of the existence on sites like this one. The giant suit of armor dwarfs those around it. The caption says: "2.6m armor suit created for giant Bartlmä Bon Real armor made for a real man in the 15th century" There is little information about Bartlmä Bon online. I found that he was from Riva del Garda in Trenten, Italy. He served as the archduke of Tirol Ferdinand II., who served Rudolf at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck, located in present day Austria. He accompanied Ferdinand’s nephews at the royal tournament in Vienna in 1560. His armor is indeed housed in the Ambras Castle museum (Austria) and is on display for anyone visiting the castle to see. Bartlmä Bon was the tallest man known to exist during the 16th century; however, this does not mean he was a giant. Typical of many pictures online claiming something about giants, there is no scale next to the giant suit of armor. I searched online and found someone who had actually been to the Ambras Castle and asked her about the armor. She was glad to help in my search for the truth. She sent me the picture you see below with a person standing next to the armor. She said that her friend is 1.65 m tall (about 5'4"). With a normal-sized person for scale, it's obvious that the impression of Bartlmä Bon's armor as "giant" is enhanced because the museum has surrounded it with suits of armor made to fit children and (perhaps) very small adults. My informant confirmed that the armored mannequin is indeed 2.60 m tall (about 8'5"). Some sources put Bartlmä Bon's height at about 2.35 m (about 7'9"). Why the discrepancy? Perhaps the armor in the 16th century was not yet advanced for a perfect fit and had to be bigger than the person wearing it. And perhaps the mannequin is just too tall: you can see that there are no lower leg components to the armor and the helmet seems to be perched off the shoulders. At 7'9", Bartlmä Bon was a big man, but not some kind of supernatural giant. The tallest man living today, according to the Guinness Book of World Records is Sultan Kosen who lives in Turkey and measures 2.51 cm (about 8'2"). The tallest man in medical history, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is Robert Pershing Wadlow, born in Alton, Illinois, USA in 1918. When last measured in 1940, Wadlow was found to be 2.72 m (8'11"). These people, and dozens more, have been recorded by a reliable source in the last 100 years. If a reliable source like the Guinness book of world records can find people this tall in the last 100 years, then this shows us that there are people in the world today that are this tall and there were probably people in the past measuring these heights, like Bartlmä Bon. The Schloss Ambras castle giant is not really a "giant." Bartlma was just a tall man compared to the average height of a person at that time. The average person’s height in Austria is 5'10". People believe in giants for a variety of reasons. Some think that the existence of giants would prove the Bible to be true. Others believe that the government is covering up evidence of the giant bones to protect evolution theories. One of the most fantastic tales that I’ve heard is that the military is covering up evidence of giants because they are developing and testing giant super soldiers in secret underground facilities. Bartlmä Bon is not good evidence for any of those claims.
5 Comments
Maybe Another Kook
10/7/2016 05:34:27 pm
In this discussion of a supposed giant, the author provided clear, concise evidence and rationale as to why Bartlam Bon was just another human, albeit oversized.
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Wow, very interesting. A nearly 8 feet tall man's armor. That's a substantial find.
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3/15/2019 03:43:53 am
I am going to think outside the box here: When we look into the past we don't find little monkey-men, we see human beings that are bigger, better, faster, stronger, smarter and healthier in the past. The same is true with giant animals mislabeled extinct. I think if we didnt have recent history Bartlmä Bon academia would say that he was an extinct line of humans. 7 foot 9" let me place some perspective, the 2nd tallest person in basketball is about 7'3" any given year. Minute Bol is only 7 foot 7" and one of the two tallest players in basketball history. Yasutaka Okayama was 7'8" (the tallest person ever to be drafted in the NBA. There is a repeated statement that people are taller today than in the past, it is simply not true.
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Andy White
3/15/2019 10:17:23 am
You seem to be confusing average height with the heights of individuals. Some people in the past were taller than some people today, but on average the data suggest that people today are taller. Our data get thinner (i.e., there are fewer data points with which to compute an average) as you go farther back in time, however. There is also geographic variability. This website is helpful: https://ourworldindata.org/human-height
Jack nasty
7/13/2021 11:46:05 am
Armor was advanced in the 16th century. It was custom made for those that could afford quality armor.
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