Assyrian armour found in China

[Sean Manning]

Apparently Seevers and Barron have decided that since little metal scale armour has been recovered compared to depictions in the reliefs, that it much of it must have been leather (hide). Ouch. That is a leap:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fig...r%20armour

I think its pretty likely that some of the Greek scale armour in the 6th/5th century BCE was made of hide, since it does not seem to survive very often. Being able to document that technology after the Late Bronze Age and before Dura-Europos is useful. But for an article like this, I would really like to see an argument that the Neo-Assyrians used leather scale armour, other than that it would have been cheaper and their armies were large.

There is so little armour from anywhere in early medieval Europe and the Islamic world, and that is not because it did not exist, but because they did not have the custom of burying it (and because iron mail rusts quickly).

Showing that this technology was widespread is cool, but they don't really make a case for linking hide scale armour with the Neo-Assyrians specifically.