Lamellar armour

Lamellar Armour

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Lamellar armour

Lamellar armour

Armour

Armour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat....
is a kind of personal armour consisting of small plates (lames) which are laced together in parallel rows.

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Lamellar armour

Armour

Scale armour

Scale armour , Lorica squamata, lorica plumata consists of many small scales attached to a backing material of either leather or cloth....
, from which it differs by not needing a backing for the scales. It is made from pieces of lacquer

Lacquer

In a general sense, lacquer is a clear or coloured varnish that dries by solvent evaporation and often a curing process as well that produces a hard, durable finish, in any sheen level from ultra matte to high Gloss and that can be further polished as required....
ed leather

Leather

Leather is a material created through the tanning of rawhides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses....
, iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Iron is a Group 8 element and period 4 element. Iron is lustrous and silvery in color....
, steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.14% by weight , depending on grade. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten....
or horn

Horn (anatomy)

A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various mammals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone....
held together with silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from Pupa#Cocoons made by the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity ....
, leather

Leather

Thongs

Thongs may refer to:*Flip-flop, a type of footwear*G-string, a variant of the thong*Thong , a type of underwear...
, or cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa....
thread

Yarn

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibers, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking....
. When the lames are made of leather they would often be hardened by a process such as cuir bouilli
Boiled leather

Boiled leather, sometimes called cuir bouilli, was a historical construction material for armour. It consists of thick leather, boiled in water ....
or lacquering.

Use and history

Lamellar was often worn as augmentation to existing armour, such as over a mail hauberk

Hauberk

A hauberk is a shirt of Mail armour. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. Haubergeon generally refers to a shorter variant with partial sleeves, but the terms are often used interchangeably....
. The lamellar cuirass was especially popular with the Rus

Rus' (people)

Rus? are the historic population of the medieval Rus' Khaganate and Kievan Rus' whose name survives in the cognates Russians, Rusyns, and Ruthenians, and who are viewed by the modern Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians as the predecessors of their own peoples....
, as well as Mongols

Mongols

The name Mongol specifies one or several ethnic groups, now mainly located in Mongolia, China, and Russia....
, Turks

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia, and who mostly speak languages belonging to the Turkic languages....
, Avars

Avars

Avars may refer to:* Eurasian Avars, a nomadic people who invaded Europe in the 6th Century AD* Uar * Caucasian Avars, a modern people of the Caucasus...
, and other steppe peoples as it was simple to create and maintain.

Lamellar is pictured in many historical sources on Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
warriors, especially heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry is a term referring to a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces . Although their equipment differed greatly depending on region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses and armed with some kind of sword....
. It is thought that it was worn to create a more deflective surface to the rider's armour, thus allowing blades to skim over, rather than strike and pierce. Recent studies by Timothy Dawson of the University of New England, Australia

University of New England, Australia

The University of New England is an Australian public university with approximately 18,000 higher education students. Its original and main campus is located in the city of Armidale, New South Wales in northern New South Wales....
, suggest that Byzantine lamellar armour was significantly superior to chain mail.

Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
ian and Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ian bas-reliefs depicting soldiers have been argued as portraying the earliest examples of lamellar armour, particularly on chariot drivers, but it is not until the time of the Assyrians

Assyrian people

The Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people are an ethnic group whose origins lie in the Fertile Crescent, their Assyrian/Syriac homeland today being divided between Northern Iraq, Syria, Western Iran, and Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia....
circa 900–600 BC that possible examples of lamellar begin to appear in the archaeological record. Among finds of Assyrian armour (often individual or unconnected scales) there are examples that can clearly be classified as scale armour

Scale armour

Scale armour , Lorica squamata, lorica plumata consists of many small scales attached to a backing material of either leather or cloth....
as well as others that appear to be lamellar, and there exist a large number of finds whose function has proven difficult to determine. The extent to which either type was used is a debated topic. The earliest definite instance of true lamellar was found in China when twelve suits of lacquered lamellar were uncovered in a tomb at Sui-hsien, Hupei (dated to c. 433 BC). Lamellar was used by various cultures from this time up through the 16th century. It is generally associated with the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
ese Samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
, although the armour came to Japan from contact with Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an Dynasties in Chinese history preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire....
China

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
. It is also associated with the steppe people of southern Russia and Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
such as the Scythians and Sarmatians

Sarmatians

The Sarmatians, Sarmat? or Sauromat? were a people of Ancient Iranian peoples origin. Mentioned by Classics authors, they migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains around fifth century B.C....
.

Lamellar armour

Use and history

See also