Tinned or silvered Hamata rings or Scales?

[jkaler48]

Anyone know of any Hamata fragments that may have been tinned or silvered. How about scales?

[Dan Howard]

IIRC some Roman scales were tinned. I think they sometimes even tinned bronze scales but I don't have a cite atm.

[noxia]

Hi there,
in Bonn were found tinned bronze scales. As far as i could detect, only the rim scales seem to have been tinned, so that would mean, that the cuirass was perhaps bicolor

[Dan Howard]

Yeah, it seems fairly clear that the Romans used tinning as decoration, not as a means of protecting the metal from corrosion.

[Alexandr K]

Hello,

Parts of silvered scale armour were found by Mušov (Czech Republic).

See this article (page 82).

[attachment=46]scalearml.jpg[/attachment]


Greetings,
Alexandr

[Robert Vermaat]

Yeah, it seems fairly clear that the Romans used tinning as decoration, not as a means of protecting the metal from corrosion.

i think that would be a rather hasty conclusion. Why not 'both/and ?

[Dan Howard]

Because copper alloys need no protective coating. Because often selected parts of the armour were tinned - usually in some sort of pattern. How much evidence is there for tinned iron scale?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I am of the opinion that they did it to give the impression of wearing iron or silver armour...although the anti corrsion interpretation had sounded plausable.

[Peroni]

IIRC some Roman scales were tinned. I think they sometimes even tinned bronze scales but I don't have a cite atm.

An example of alternating brass/tinned brass scale was discovered at Ham Hill.Another section was found at the St. Bernards Pass using three colours. Copper/brass/tinned

St Bernards Pass fragment..