Scale armour

[4] The Scythians' horse warriors appear to have used scale or possibly lamellar armour, evident both from contemporary illustrations and burial finds in kurgans.

Due to the semi-rigid nature of the armour, the Scythian variety was made as breast- and back-plates, with separate shoulder pieces.

Some finds indicate partial armour, where a leather shirt or similar garment has sewn-on scales in places, particularly around the neck and upper chest.

On two tombstones of the Sertorii at Verona (one that of a centurion, the other that of a standard-bearer) both figures are represented wearing a tunic of scale armour which covers the shoulders and comes down below the belt.

Again, in the collection of marble portrait-busts from the great Gallo-Roman villa of Chiragan near Toulouse, the Emperors Antoninus Pius and Severus both appear wearing corselets of scale armour.

The funeral effigy of Sir Albrecht Von Hohenlohe circa 1325 AD depicts him wearing scaled body armour underneath his surcoat and over a mail haubergeon.

[8] Scale armour was typically reserved for officers and senior soldiers in the militaries of various Korean states, including the period of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, due to cost and duration of production.

Horses covered with scale armour are mentioned in the ancient Chinese book of poetry, Shi Jing.

"A primitive type of Japanese harness, the single laminae being of boiled leather, cut and beaten into pieces shaped like fish-scales.

[17] These horse "trappers"—a term used in Simon James's excavation report[17]—were made of a textile base covered by a layer of metal scales, one with iron and one with bronze.

Modern forms of scale armour are sometimes worn for decorative or LARP purposes, and may be made from materials such as steel, aluminium, or even titanium.