>>26890
If we look into the written sources we gain very little insight. Sadly depictions (paintings, drawings, statues, coins, etc.) aren't helpful either. Then the only source remains the Crown itself.
So researchers took a look at the Crown. It has 19 enamel icons depicting named persons in an obvious dual fashion: on the rim everything is written in Greek but on the cross straps the labels are in Latin. So quickly they "took apart" the crown and said: this is two crowns, a corona graeca and a corona latina as if there were such crown categories anywhere in the world. The two actually can be taken apart without damaging the relic itself, they are riveted together and not soldered.
This however created new problems - liek: without a rim, how the cross straps stood?; it had to have another rim, no?; where is this hypothetical rim?; were the cross straps really an independent crown?; etc. - first and foremost now they had to deal with not one but two crowns' origin, when they were made and by whom?
It is impossible to answer these with any level of certainty in case of the cross straps, because there is no information on it which could lead us to a date, the named figures are the apostles (8) and one image of Christ (Pantokrator). But recently they simplified this by figuring out: it is really possible that the cross straps were made so they can create the Crown in it's current form. It wasn't a previous crown but was an addition to the rim to create a new one out of the rim. For some weird reason they still can't stop calling the straps a "corona" tho.