Mongolian armour
Encyclopedia
Armour
Armour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an object, individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat, or from damage caused by a potentially dangerous environment or action...
drew its influence from Chinese
Chinese armour
China has a long history of armour and weapons development. China has many varieties of armour, but the most were of the lamellar, coat of plates, brigandine and scaled varieties.-Ancient Armor: Shang to Han:Initially, armour was exclusively for nobles...
and Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
styles. Most Mongolian armour was of scale
Scale armour
Scale armour is an early form of armour sometimes erroneously called scale mail consisting of many individual small armour scales of various shapes attached to each other and to a backing of cloth or leather in overlapping rows. Scale armour was worn by warriors of many different cultures as well...
and lamellar
Lamellar armour
Lamellar armour was one of three early body armour types made from armour plates. The other two types are scale armour and laminar armour.-Description:...
variety. Most armour was made of hardened leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
and iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
, lanced together onto a fabric backing, sometimes silk. Mail armour was also sometimes used, but was rare, probably due to its weight and difficulty to repair. Mongol archers demanded the armour to be light enough so that when riding, it didn't interfere with their mobility. It is also possible that the Mongol armour lacked mail and was generally lighter than its counterparts to the East and West because the nomadic habits of the Mongols were not conducive to the labour intensive practices and permanent facilities necessary for making mail or large plates. Sometimes arm protection was removed so that a rider could draw their bow. The helmet was made of mostly iron, but leather and other materials were also used. Lamellar armour was also used by the countries that were affected by the invasion of the Mongols world-wide, including the conquest of China and the middle east. This is especially shown by Tamerlane, a debatably Mongol warlord of the 15th century that used lamellar armour consistently with his cavalry, and garbed himself and his men in Mongolian armour during war.
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
was once said to have issued all his horsemen with silk vests, as an arrow hitting silk does not break it but ends up embedded in the flesh wrapped in silk, allowing the arrow to be removed by gently teasing the silk open, as opposed to the usual method of removing barbed arrows, cutting them out or pushing them right through an injured limb and out of the other side. These silk vests functioned much like the padded armour used by European and Byzantine soldiers of the era, such as the gambeson
Gambeson
A gambeson is a padded defensive jacket, worn as armour separately, or combined with mail or plate armour. Gambeson were produced with a sewing technique called quilting. Usually constructed of linen or wool, the stuffing varied, and could be for example scrap cloth or horse hair...
.