Butted VS Rivited

[Decimus Apollonius]

What was found more Butted Chain or rivited? Any ideas.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Riveted, and possibly one butted shirt from Switzerland. [/b]

[Decimus Apollonius]

Possibly...why possibly? Could you explian

[Neuraleanus]

Usually roman maille comes to us as clumps of iron oxide. The individual rings, let alone how they are made, either riveted, butted, or solid, is extremely difficult, if not impossible to see.

Nevertheless, the little bit of evidence that we do have suggests a preference for alternating riveted and solid rings. Roman maille also tended to use small diameter rings with appropriately small diameter wire. Butted construction would not stay together.

[Peroni]

The Kirkburn (Yorkshire) shirt was butted. Probably of British, not Roman manufacture. Much older IIRC.

[lup_alb]

Earlyest maille shirts, mostly celtic, were butted or half butted / half puched. Roman maille shirts were riveted or riveted / punched as far as it is known at this moment.

[Erik D. Schmid]

The vast majority of Roman mail from various archaeological finds have consisted of a combination of both riveted and punched links. Adrian is correct, the Kirkburn shirt is of butted construction, but should be viewed as the exception and not the rule. The link size seemed to vary based on the location and the time period as well. Much of the British mail finds suggest links averaging around 4-5mm ID, while the finds on the continent are slightly larger averaging around 6-7mm. These are just rough figures, but should give you a general idea of a few Roman mail characteristics.

[Decimus Apollonius]

Thank you this information is helpful! So now as far as recreation/ re-enactment goes what is used the most?

[M. Demetrius]

Without a survey of any kind, I'd suggest that butted is the more common, since it's by far cheaper. A shirt can be had for around a hundred dollars or less, and modified to look more Roman.

A riveted/punched shirt will cost upwards of 400-500 dollars or more.

There are only a very few people who are making hamata with the right size and best-analytical guess rings. They are even more expensive.

Money is the driver for most of us in the choice of what we'll wear/own.

[Decimus Apollonius]

understandable. How does the butted hold up in needle felt combat? I have fought in the other types of combat(but not needle felt) and watched butted shirts get destroyed.

[M. Demetrius]

I'm only speaking from my own experience, but it doesn't seem to be damaged by NF. Occasionally, a link needs to be tightened, or if not noticed soon enough, replaced. I think that's just from body motion and perhaps stress on a certain point, all kinds of sources for that, such as being bumped by a shield edge or something, or from storage/retrieval maybe...can't say. Basically, I'd give it an A- for durability.

[Decimus Apollonius]

Got ya. I have been thinking of starting to work on one. I made a later period style shirt before and would like to make a Roman piece as well. Takes me a while I would get to working on it then I don't want to see the blasted thing for a month.


It has always blown me away as to how the real pieces of maile and armour are still around. Very neat concept.

[Martin Wallgren]

Fairly cheep butted mail! Kaufraum is the name of the merchant, and he can answer mail in english though the site is only in german.

[Decimus Apollonius]

Ill check it out Martin, thank you.

[Matt Lukes]

This 'how-to' site might help you some too Brian if you're of a mind to make the rings yourself: [url:2lxp7ufu]http://www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer/HowtoChain.html[/url]

I made a butted mail coif some years ago and just used a hardwood dowel in the chuck of my power drill to wind the wire (drill a hole through the dowel, insert then end of the wire and bend it over- then insert the dowel in the chuck and wind the wire running the drill at medium speed)and a Dremel with cutoff wheel to cut the individual links- it worked quite quickly.