Goth armour

[Doc]

Hello Alan,

For scale armor I think that rawhide was found as stitching on presumed pieces of leather used for edgings. Sinew I have no doubt could have been used for stitching the scales on a backing. However, lets not discount that thick linen thread was also commonly used on caligae and thus could have also been used to attach scales. From what I know, scale armor was attached to a linen backing. I do not know of any sources that conclusively prove the use of leather as a backing for squamata. I am not saying its impossible because with the Romans anything is possible and in many cases probable without evidence. Just making a statement on what I know of evidence for backing.

Cheers

[daryush]

Using your definition of lamellar, the earliest example I've found dates to the Warring States period in China. Twelve suits of lacquered rawhide lamellar were found in Leigudun, China. They are attributed to the Qin and look very similar to the armour depicted on the Terracotta Warriors. Etruscan armour and all earlier examples are laced to a foundation of leather, linen, or felt.

Ooh, do you have images / a reference?

[Dan Howard]

"Excavation and Restoration of Leather Armor and Helmets from Tomb I, Leigudun, Sui Xian, Hubei", Kaogu 1979.6:542-553.

Albert E Dien has done a translation in one of the volumes of Chinese Studies in Archaeology but I'm not sure which one.

[Alanus]

Twelve suits of lacquered rawhide lamellar were found in Leigudun, China. They are attributed to the Qin and look very similar to the armour depicted on the Terracotta Warriors. Etruscan armour and all earlier examples are laced to a foundation of leather, linen, or felt.

Hello, Dan

Terracotta army soldiers were the Qin warriors, thousands of them buried with the 1st Qin Emperor. This was around 220 BC, I think. Further back on this thread, I posted a photo of a Qin archer. All the weapons in the tomb were removed by the second Qin Emperor, so the archer's bow is missing. Qin lamellar armor continued to be refined by the Han, and it was combined with scale and mail. The Wusun/Alans were mercenaries for the Qin; and they were allies with the Han in fighting the Xiong-Nu/Huns. So it's logical that historians like Simonenko mention lamellar arriving in Europe with the earliest Sarmatian/Alanic tribes and ahead of the Huns.

Also, Lord Wu-- who required his cavalrymen to adopt "barbarian" clothes and armor-- lived in the Zhao Dynasty, just before the Qin. So, when Simonenko, Rostovtzeff, Treister, and Truesdale, point out this same fact we can believe lamellar and the long iron sword originally arrived from the Saka/Sarmatians who neighbored the Chinese.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The Xiongnu were not Huns, I should mention. That idea was discounted and disproved in the 1940's. The current consensus is that they were Bulgar Proto-Turks that first began appearing in the 250's. The word "Hunni" comes from Ptolemy's "Cunni" which was a Dacian or Germanic tribe on the Black sea, east of the Dniester, which probably passed the name down to the "Vurugundi" (I should note these may have or may have not been Huns) and subsequently to the Alpilcurs and the Akatir in the 350's-370's. We have no idea what the Huns called themselves (it was probably by their individual "tribal" names like Ultinzur and Akatir) but they colectively became known as the "Huns" to the Romans and Germanics. Later authors took different peoples that looked like "Hunnoi" and transcribed that over it when copying ancient texts, making it appear as if the Huns had been int he works of Tacitus, etc.

Also, I thought the Yancai were the Alans? And I thought the Wu-sun were proto Gokturks?

Also, Lord Wu-- who required his cavalrymen to adopt "barbarian" clothes and armor-- lived in the Zhao Dynasty, just before the Qin. So, when Simonenko, Rostovtzeff, Treister, and Truesdale, point out this same fact we can believe lamellar and the long iron sword originally arrived from the Saka/Sarmatians who neighbored the Chinese.

Otto Maenchen-Helfen also agrees with this statement, I was reading it in his section regarding the nature of the Alans and Sarmatians in relation to the Xiongnu-Europoid relation.

[Michael Kerr]

Magister Militum Flavius Aetius wrote:

Also, I thought the Yancai were the Alans? And I thought the Wu-sun were proto Gokturks?

A little bit off topic but I was always under the assumption that Yancai was an area or country meaning “vast steppe” inhabited by the Aorsi, located North-west of Sogdiana near the Great Marsh which corresponded to Strabo’s description to the west and North of the Caspian Sea or Aral Sea, where a loose confederation was formed consisting of various Sarmatian tribes such as elements of remaining Roxolani, Aorsi, Siraces, Alans & assorted other tribes, not necessarily Iranian but at least beginning with a predominantly Sarmatian nucleus from about 22-55AD. Why they felt the necessity to form a confederation I have no idea but maybe formed through conquest or mutual defence and tribes who didn't want to be part of or escaping this federation moved west. The name Aorsi disappears around this time. This fits in with the first historical appearance of the Alans, north of the Caucasus in a raid against the Parthian vassal kingdom of Armenia possibly at the instigation of Tiberius in 35AD. Just to get off the fence I tend to agree with you that Alans were tied in with this area but I don't discount any theories that there maybe some Wusun/Alan connections

As to the Wu-sun being proto Gokturks, the jury is still out on that one. The Han seemed to think that they were distinct from the Xiongnu (who themselves were a confederacy made up of different tribes & races and probably led by Turkic elements) except for a short time in their history. Most authors I read on Central Asian history seem to think that they were probably Indo-European stock because of certain physical features described by Chinese commentators of the time, such as greenish/blue eyes & red/fair hair & beards, except for a couple who think Turkic (mainly because in simplified Chinese the name Wusun means “Grandchildren of the Crow” which along with the wolf occurs a lot in Turkic and Mongol legends, but in Sogdian it could mean “people of the tents" and/or "horsemen" but they could also be Tocharian. Looking at Wikipedia I see that they have 5 citations referring to Turkic origin and 1 citation to Indo-Iranian but I am very wary of any Wiki entries. I don’t know enough to venture on whether Wusun are related to Alans. Agusti Alemany mentions that a lot of earlier authors mix up Asii/Aorsi with Asiani/Wusun but maybe Alanus might have some further information on that. The one doubt I have with Alan connections is that Wusun seem to be predominately horse archers & bowmen where with Sarmatians/Alans the bow seems to be a secondary weapon to the lance but like a lot of Sarmatian/Alans maybe only a small percentage of nobles & retainers used lance/contus as primary weapon. But we are really straying off the original topic of armour but still an interesting comment you made.

Regards
Michael Kerr

[daryush]

Qin lamellar armor continued to be refined by the Han, and it was combined with scale and mail.

No, it wasn't, maille doesn't reach China until the 8th Century AD with the Sogdian traders.

What's your source for the scale?

[Dan Howard]

No, it wasn't, maille doesn't reach China until the 8th Century AD with the Sogdian traders.

Upon which they pretended that it was a Chinese invention. The biography of general Hau Shi-chung claims that he invented mail, which is funny because he was born three centuries after the Chinese started listing mail armour in their inventories.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

And 11 centuries after it's invention and adoption in the West...

@Michael Kerr

Thanks, that was very informative.

[Alanus]

Both Mallory and Sulimirski contend that the Wusun were Indo-European speakers, and both authors claim they may have even spoken Torcarian. Sima Quan noted they often had red hair and green eyes. Their historic "point-of-contact" location was West of the Yue-chi in the Illi River Vally, almost surrounded by the Tien Shan. The Xiong-nu drove the Yue-chi to the West, pushing them toward the Wusun who fought them off. They continued westward and settled In the BMC. Thus historicity places the Wusun in firm Indo-European culture and discounts them as being proto-Turkic or having a language similar to the Xiong-nu who came from the Northeast (exacty why the Great Wall was built by the Qin), and swept southward to originally encounter the Yue-chi. This is geographical, linguistical, and cultural fact, not fantasy. 8-)

I'm of the impression that any "citations" that claim the Wusun were of proto-Turkic stock have been inserted into Wiki by pro-Turkic nationalists-extremists. This same group also claims the kurgans near Issyk Kul were built by Turkic nomads, not by the Saka. This kind of thinking has also claimed the Massagetae were Turkic. I'm tired of nationalistic groups trying to re-write History! :twisted:

[TDawson]

Dan Howard wrote:

Timothy Dawson wrote:
Lamellar was used by the Etruscans

Not if you define lamellar the way Alan just did.

Actually it does still fit even with Alanus' incomplete definition, but you would have to get over your knee-jerk aversion to looking at my book to appreciate the point, Dan.

[daryush]

No, it wasn't, maille doesn't reach China until the 8th Century AD with the Sogdian traders.

Upon which they pretended that it was a Chinese invention. The biography of general Hau Shi-chung claims that he invented mail, which is funny because he was born three centuries after the Chinese started listing mail armour in their inventories.

Hmm, I was under the impression tha the Chinese attributed maille to the Sogdians when they first came into contact with it.

[Dan Howard]

Different Chinese texts attribute the origin of something to different sources. Nothing unusual about that. The important fact is that the earliest mention of mail in any Chinese text is in a list of tributes from Sarmakand in the 8th century (Kaiyuan Period).

[Alanus]

Hello, Gents

Sorry for my statement that chainmail arrived in China during the Han Dynasty. Actually, it was introduced by a delegation of the Kuchi (Yue-chi) who came to the Jin court in 384AD. I was close, since it's just after the Han andThree Kingdoms period. Connectively interesting, the Kushans or Yue-chi were neighbors of the Wusun, whom I mentioned before. So, it looks like the Chinese once again borrowed a military item from the eastern Iranian-speaking "barbarians." (Again, my apologies to the "revisionists" who dream that the Yue-chi and Wusun were Turkic-speaking.) The Chinese nobles considered chainmail as precious, importing it at high prices. :whistle:

see Liu, Yong hua: Ancient Chinese Armor, Shanghai, 2003, pp. 63-64

[daryush]

Thanks for the reference - I will see if I can get a copy as it will be useful for my Central Asian research too. What was the author referencing?

Weren't the Kuchi Khotanese rather than Yue-chih who had disappeared by the 4th Century?

4th C is shortly after the first occurrence of maille in Afghanistan with the Kushano-Sasanians.