I'm posting this as a separate thread because I'd like to avoid this topic getting swallowed up in the vast expanse of the very-broad thread on islamic arms and armor.

A great deal of eastern mail armor that I have seen (some antiques from what I remember) exhibited butted mail rather than riveted mail.

Was this a fairly standard eastern practice of the time? (Or is my memory just going bad on me?)

If you want reference to a source or two, the third picture down on Hisham Gaballa's first post in the islamic arms and armor thread that's already up depicts a hybrid mail/plate hauberk that seems to be of butted mail.

AFAIK most Islamic mail up until the end of the 17th century is riveted. Some Mamluk mail is even double-rivetted. It's only later Indian and Iranian mail from the 18th and 19th century which is unrivetted, probably because by this time mail was worn mainly for show and was hardly ever used in battle.

In fact a lot of pre-17th century Islamic mail was of a very high quality, if you can get hold of Ian Bottomley and Helen Bowstead Stallybrass' paper on "Indian Galvanised Mail" in the Royal Armouries yearbook 2000, it's well worth a read.

Otherwise if you are lucky enough to live close to a Major Museum like the Metropolitan in New York, The Royal Armouries, or the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you might be able to see for yourself. If you do, please share the photos with us :D.

I've already put this picture on another thread, I hope the moderators don't mind if I put it here as well:

Wow! Those rivets are tiny!

I actually had been to the Met, and hadn't noticed rivets in the few examples there.

The way I see it, there are three possible reasons for this:

A) Tiny rivets as exhibited in that picture.

B) Poorly researched dating of the armor.

C) Poor observation skills on my part.

Here are a couple of quotes from that paper by Ian Bottomley and Helen Bowstead Stallybrass. the Original paper is 6 pages long, it was very kindly given to me by B.I. This paper is discussing Indian mail only.

Hi Caleb, I have 2 more pictures for you both from "THE ARTS OF WAR. Arms and Armour of the 7th to 19th centuries (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, VOL XXI)", by David Alexander (birthday present from my wife, arrived in the post today :))

Detail from an Iranian mail and plate armour, 15th century:


Detail from an Iranian mail shirt, 15th century:


The book also has pictures of a 16th Turkish mail and plate shirt made with rivetted links and a 17th century Indian mail and plate shirt from the Bikanir armoury, also made with rivetted links.

Beautiful book BTW, I've spent all day looking at it :D.

I would like to caution against using the aforementioned article for anything other than a very generalized look at mail. Much has been learned about mail since it was written making some of the things in the article suspect.

On this topic (beautiful pics by the way), I'm sorry for a simple question but can you tell me about how long it would take to make a maille shirt of the finer quality? This fascinates me looking at these pictures because it seems such an excruciatingly long process. Was the steel for the rings drawn out into a wire and cut ?



Also I looked at the link on your post, Mr Schmidt. Does this society have forums or discussions which are accessible? It seemed to have a lot of links to museum sites but nothing in the way of available articles done to date or discussions. Maybe I didn't see the correct site button or is it for paying members only? I would be very interested to see any discussions or articles available. Is this a new society ?

Many thanks



Daniel

Thanks for the reply.

The time process, and therefore the expense, hence availability to men in warfare interests me because it almost looks harder to make than a breastplate. It was partly the arabic engravings which made me ask the question - how long could that have taken without a modern molding process ? Also please provide more plates of Islamic arms and armour whenever you want - not my area but I regularly admire the British museum and Wallace Collection ones. So subtle I find.

Looking forward to hearing from Mr Schmidt and what his society offers.

Daniel

I think just for the sake of completeness I should include some Ottoman and Indian Armour here. Both pictures are from "The Arts of War. Arms and Armour of the 7th to 19th centuries (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, VOL XXI)", by David Alexander. These pictures are both quite slow to open and will require a bit of patience :).

The first from an Ottoman mail and plate shirt from the 15th-16th century:


This one is an Indian mail and plate shirt, Bijapur, India, 17th century. this shirt is from the Bikaner Armoury.

For those of you interested in the subject here is a recent article that exactly addresses these kinds of issues;

2004 Park Lane Arms Fair Catalogue. "Problems and pitfalls in the identification of European Mail" by David Edge

It compares the methodology used in the construction of European and Asian mail in a very accessible way. The short answer is, as Erik Schmid pointed out, that there is much to be learned and that hard and fast rules are hard to come by. There have been many examples attributed to the wrong continent by "experts", and this is only now becoming clear as recent research is slowly unraveling new evidence.

Now how you go about to find this article.....it is not easy, but it is worth it. This site sell Park Lane Catalogues.

Alexi

Here's some Islamic mail on display at the Higgins Armour Museum in Worchester, MA - USA.

[ Linked Image ]

I took this picture so long ago that unforntunately I don't have more info. But each ring is riveted and contains the text of a prayer.

That is a very nice shirt Dan. The links were made in the same fashion as I mentioned above.