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The catafract topic has got me thinking about the oft missed out far east.

Wondering about how common full horse armour was in the far east.

Whilst books like Ospreys often illustrate some cavalry from peoples like the Uighurs, Khitans, Mongols and, of course, various Chinese dynasties, with fully armoured horses they don't usually give any indication of how widespread the use was. For example was it limited to some sort of elite, whole "units", or more widespread or something else?

Any thoughts or pointers where useful information might be?

I am fairly confident that, in the vast majority of cases, we don't know.
Its pretty rare to be able to even guess at the proportion of cavalry, let alone the distribution of what the horses were wearing.

I am speculating, because its not my thing, but I doubt the evidence for the number/proportion of cataphracts in near eastern armies is particularly detailed. If you asked the army list author where he got the number of cataphracts from, I think you'd be disappointed.

There are some Kogoryo tomb paintings with 100s of soldiers illustrated, you could assume that this reflects a historical army's troop ratio and go from there?

We do have, for example, the example of the Sui invasion of Koguryo in 612, where each "army" ("division" might be a better translation) contained four regiments each of 1,000 cavalry on armoured horses, and no other cavalry except 200 horse-archers. Or the Khitan-Liao regulations where every "regular soldier" was supposed to have horse-armour.

In other cases - the Northern Dynasties, or Koguryo, for instance - I think all we have to go on is the overwhelming prevalence of horse-armour in art.

Quote from: Duncan Head on October 03, 2018, 08:45:40 AM
In other cases - the Northern Dynasties, or Koguryo, for instance - I think all we have to go on is the overwhelming prevalence of horse-armour in art.

Thought that's probably be the case  :o

Any recommended sites that might assist on the image front? Or is it charge headlong into Google Images and Pinterest  ::)

This pdf (http://116.67.40.25/NEW_PDF/korguryo.pdf) is a good starting-point for the Koguryo stuff, though it only illustrates Anak 3 and I think one other soldier-scene. I'm sure there is a good site for all the Koguryo tombs but can't find it right now.

And as recently mentioned in another thread, the Skupniewicz article on Sasanian barding (http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-341575d6-281e-47a9-a3a5-67536a3c7a64/c/his_3_Skupniewicz.pdf) has some East Asian images.

Some Chinese and steppe stuff also illustrated in David Nicolle's "Horse Armour in the Medieval Islamic Middle East" (https://journals.openedition.org/cy/3293) - and a "late antique" Yemeni relief I hadn't seen before, comparable to this one (http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-5bc0b258-c896-4a41-a7ca-9e74901aee09/c/Skupniewicz_1409.pdf)!

Brief note on late Chinese: http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/07/horse-armour-of-ming-dynasty.html

(Edit: just to tweak the typos)

Quote from: Duncan Head on October 03, 2018, 08:45:40 AM
We do have, for example, the example of the Sui invasion of Koguryo in 612, where each "army" ("division" might be a better translation) contained four regiments each of 1,000 cavalry on armoured horses.

Are you sure it says "armoured horses"? I am guessing it more likely says the more ambiguous armoured cavalry. I can check the original, but you may have it in front of you.

The Kogoryo armoured horse, and the breakdown of the Sui, are touched upon in Slingshot 312.

I don't have the text, but Graff seems certain - "armored soldiers on armored horses" (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sga4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=sui++4,000+armoured+soldiers+horses&source=bl&ots=y-4GYoLKbf&sig=B-tweIN_cNmqrkKbuI929m8vr1o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw48SX9endAhUFL6wKHQVJD9kQ6AEwE3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=sui%20%204%2C000%20armoured%20soldiers%20horses&f=false) - and I seem to recall the horse-armour being enumerated in one of the other accounts I've read - Yang Hong or Erling von Mende, I think. This is the famous case when the four cavalry "regiments" in each army are each outfitted in a distinctive colour.

Quote from: Duncan Head on October 03, 2018, 09:43:25 AM
This pdf (http://116.67.40.25/NEW_PDF/korguryo.pdf) is a good starting-point for the Koguryo stuff, though it only illustrates Anak 3 and I think one other soldier-scene. I'm sure there is a good site for all the Koguryo tombs but can't find it right now.

And as recently mentioned in another thread, the Skupniewicz article on Sasanian barding (http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-341575d6-281e-47a9-a3a5-67536a3c7a64/c/his_3_Skupniewicz.pdf) has some East Asian images.

Some Chinese and steppe stuff also illustrated in David Nicolle's "Horse Armour in the Medieval Islamic Middle East" (https://journals.openedition.org/cy/3293) - and a "late antique" Yemeni relief I hadn't seen before, comparable to this one (http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-5bc0b258-c896-4a41-a7ca-9e74901aee09/c/Skupniewicz_1409.pdf)!

Brief note on late Chinese: http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/07/horse-armour-of-ming-dynasty.html

(Edit: just to tweak the typos)

Cheers.

Already had the Nicolle one as it happens, and it was partly that which prompted my question  8)

Quote from: Duncan Head on October 03, 2018, 10:10:47 AM
I don't have the text, but Graff seems certain.

It may well be... but it's the kind of detail that we have a very specific interest in, whereas a translator will not feel any particular need to be so precise about, as evidenced by Graff's varied translation of armour. It doesn't help that we have far fewer translations of the same Chinese documents than we do of Roman or Greek corollaries.

If you have a reference I can try looking it up.

If the necromancy be excused, I stumbled upon this question which apparently never got a response:

Quote from: Dangun on October 04, 2018, 12:41:50 AM
It may well be... but it's the kind of detail that we have a very specific interest in, whereas a translator will not feel any particular need to be so precise about, as evidenced by Graff's varied translation of armour. It doesn't help that we have far fewer translations of the same Chinese documents than we do of Roman or Greek corollaries.

If you have a reference I can try looking it up.

Graff's citation reads as follows:

QuoteYang Hong, Zhongguo gu bingqi luncong, p. 50; ZZTJ 176. p. 5499; and 181, p. 5660; and Asami Naoichirō, "Yōdai no dai ichiji Kōkurei enseigun: sono kibo to heishu," Tōyōshi kenkyū 44.1 (June 1985), p. 28 and passim.

Where ZZTJ is the Zizhi tongjian in a 1956 edition.

THanks.
I'll take a look.
Just a thought though... the first chapter reference (176) is not actually in the Sui period, its the preceding dynasty.
But I'll take a look at chapter 181.

To the original question of horse armour... there is a lot of Sui and Tang ceramic cavalry and it comes in 2 varieties - armoured and unarmored.
I am not sure that barding can have been historically the majority for any army in any period... but present, and overly celebrated, sure.

Quote from: Dangun on January 26, 2019, 12:29:15 PM
I am not sure that barding can have been historically the majority for any army in any period... but present, and overly celebrated, sure.

While not relevant to China, the late Medieval Italian stuff has the irritating tendency to show either virtually all horses in armour or virtually none in armour. When the armour is ubiquitous, it may be factual or an easy way to distinguish opponents - I don't think it is to glorify one side since it tends to be used for both sides. Where the armour is rare, I think in at least some cases it can be the artist saying 'Look how good I am at painting horses'.

At least with these, in my favoured rules, it doesn't matter how the horses are depicted, so I'm increasingly tending to present my armies as they are shown in contemporary art rather than agonizing whether it is a true reflection. (Same goes with my uniformed Swiss - including the bear figure fighting in the Bernese phalanx). 

P.

Thanks Andreas for the reference!

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 25, 2019, 06:34:21 PM
Graff's citation reads as follows:

QuoteYang Hong, Zhongguo gu bingqi luncong, p. 50; ZZTJ 176. p. 5499; and 181, p. 5660; and Asami Naoichirō, "Yōdai no dai ichiji Kōkurei enseigun: sono kibo to heishu," Tōyōshi kenkyū 44.1 (June 1985), p. 28 and passim.

So I looked up the 181st chapter of the ZZTJ online at http://www.guoxue.com/shibu/zztj/content/zztj_181.htm (http://www.guoxue.com/shibu/zztj/content/zztj_181.htm)

I found the exceptionally useful paragraph in the year of 612CE where it says "each army consists of x, y, and z" (see Slingshot 312).

Quote from: ZZTJ
壬午，诏左十二军出镂方，长岑、溟海、盖马、建安、南苏、辽东、玄菟、扶馀、朝鲜、沃沮、乐浪等道，右十二军出黏蝉、含资、浑弥、临屯、候城、提奚、蹋顿、肃慎、碣石、东施、带方、襄平等道，骆驿引途，总集平壤，凡一百一十三万三千八百人，号二百万，其馈运者倍之。宜社于南桑干水上，类上帝于临朔宫南，祭马祖于蓟城北。帝亲授节度：每军大将、亚将各一人；骑兵四十队，队百人，十队为团，步卒八十队，分为四团，团各有偏将一人；其铠胄、缨拂、旗幡，每团异色；受降使者一人，承诏慰扶，不受大将节制；其辎重散兵等亦为四团，使步卒挟之而行；进止立营，皆有次叙仪法。癸未，第一军发；日遣一军，相去四十里，连营渐进；终四十日，发乃尽，首尾相继，鼓角相闻，旌旗亘九百六十里。御营内合十一卫、三台、五省、九寺，分隶内、外、前、后、左、右六军，次后发，又亘八十里。近古出师之盛，未之有也。

The bold bit is where it says, (every army contains) 40 dui of cavalry (骑兵四十队). It doesn't say anything about armour, either for the horse or the riders.

So can I just confirm (Andreas/Duncan) whether Graff's statement of armoured horse and armoured rider comes from this bit? Or some other bit? I'll have a sniff around in the rest of the chapter...

Addenda 1: This paragraph also ends the debate elsewhere in this forum about what the text actually says about infantry numbers. It says (each army contains) 80 dui divided into 4 tuan (步卒八十队, 分为四团).

I have no way to tell which of the two ZZTJ passages or the two modern works is supposed to justify the "armored soldiers on armored horses" bit.

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 27, 2019, 07:52:46 AM
I have no way to tell which of the two ZZTJ passages or the two modern works is supposed to justify the "armored soldiers on armored horses" bit.

Does Graff give any more context. Like... all Sui cavalry, all the time? Or at the battle of? Or in the year of? What is Graff describing when he says armoured soldiers on armoured horses? Any pointers, may help point me towards what he has seen.
Thanks

I might just email David Graff, he' still alive and with an email address on the Internet. In what book and page did he make the claim?

The Eurasian Way of War, p55. Duncan provided a link to  the Google Books version of the passage (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sga4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=sui++4,000+armoured+soldiers+horses&source=bl&ots=y-4GYoLKbf&sig=B-tweIN_cNmqrkKbuI929m8vr1o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw48SX9endAhUFL6wKHQVJD9kQ6AEwE3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=sui%20%204%2C000%20armoured%20soldiers%20horses&f=false) earlier in the thread.

(If the Google page says you're not allowed to view that page, try reloading it. Depending on which computer I use to access it, I either get to see it immediately or only after reloading.)

While at it, Graff's Medieval Chinese Warfare p147 says that the first company of each army had iron horse armour with green tassels, attributing this to the Sui shu ch. 8, p160 in a 1973 Zhonghua shuju edition. The second company had horse armour (of unspecified material) with red tassels; nothing is said explicitly here about whether the remaining companies had horse armour, altho Graff's following remarks seem to imply that he takes the Sui shu as saying or implying so - but he also raises the question to whether the described level of equipment was actually reached or merely aspired to.

Again, thank you Andreas.

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 27, 2019, 10:06:00 AM
The Eurasian Way of War, p55. Duncan provided a link to  the Google Books version of the passage (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sga4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=sui++4,000+armoured+soldiers+horses&source=bl&ots=y-4GYoLKbf&sig=B-tweIN_cNmqrkKbuI929m8vr1o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw48SX9endAhUFL6wKHQVJD9kQ6AEwE3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=sui%20%204%2C000%20armoured%20soldiers%20horses&f=false) earlier in the thread.

I think I call (politely) BS on Graff's p55 comment, the ZZTJ paragraph we examined above is the same as the one he referred to in the text.
"40 squadrons of armoured men on armoured horses, a total of 4000 men"
But I will ask him.  :)

I did mean to check my sources for this passage, but never got round to it. Try Yang Hong, Weapons in Ancient China, p.257.

I exchanged email with Professor David Graff. Very nice of him to get back to me so quickly.
He agreed that there is nothing in this chapter (ZZTJ ch. 181) that says the horses and riders had armour.

So personally I think it seems a bit... inaccurate (?) to write on p. 55 of Eurasian Way of War that, "forty squadrons of armoured soldiers on armoured horses, a total of 4000 men, reportedly formed the fighting core of each of the thirty Sui armies that invaded the Northern Korean Kingdom of Koguryo in 612." The quote combines elements of a near exact quote from the source which we can say with high precision: "forty squadrons of cavalry... a total of 4000 men", with an implication he presumably draws from some other place with potentially FAR lower precision. Ideally the thought process could be bit more visible?

In my exchange with David Graff he pointed out that the paragraph does contain a reference to armour. And it does:

骑兵四十队，队百人，十队为 (previously described bit about cavalry)
步卒八十队，分为四团，(previously mentioned bit about infantry)
团各有偏将一人 (each tuan has a sub-general)
其铠胄、缨拂、旗幡，每团异色 (every tuan has a different colour of flags, tassels, and armour - 铠胄.)

But, it doesn't say what kind of armour, it doesn't mention whether the horses were armoured, its not a statement that is clearly about either the infantry or cavalry or both, and it doesn't say whether all soldiers were armoured. Given the preceding paragraph was talking about at least a half a million soldiers, there is no support for a sentence that begins with the word, "all", but specifically there is no support in chapter 181 for any horse having armour, and we are just as well off pointing at tomb murals and pottery.

To be fair to David, he did very clearly say that the horse armour idea comes from the Sui Shu 8, and I will have a look at this in the coming days.

LATER EDIT. I haven't managed to look at the Sui Shu yet, but I have thought of a scenario where everything makes sense... perhaps the Sui Shu was the source for the ZZTJ and there are a couple of extra details in what is exactly the same story? That would mean the David Graff is not linking two otherwise only-potentially linked pieces of data, but to justify the quote on p. 55, perhaps it is two versions of the SAME story....  (Only thought of this idea this evening)

Here we go. From Yang Hong, Weapons in Ancient China (Science Press, Beijing/NY, 1992), p.257:

QuoteFor example, in the expedition to Liao Dong in the seventh year of the reign of Daye (611 AD), each Sui army had four regiments of cavalry, two of which were equipped with iron armour, and two with leather armour. According to the History of the Sui Dynasty, the first regiment was equipped with iron ming guang armor and iron horse armor, threaded with black silk cord and decorated with black tassels. It also flew a flag with a drawing of a lion (suan ni). The second regiment had red leather armor and red leather horse armor threaded with red silk cord and decorated with red tassels. It flew a Bi Xiu (a fabulous wild beast like a leopard ...) flag. The third regiment had white iron ming guang armor and iron horse armor, threaded with white silk cord and decorated with white tassels, it flew a bi xie (a legendary wild beast....) flag. The fourth regiment sported black leather armour and black leather horse armour threaded with black silk cord and decorated with black tassels, and it flew a liu bo flag.

Footnoted to Sui shu : Li Yi Zhi (Book of Etiquette, History of the Sui Dynasty) 160-161.

I don't recall where it came from - maybe Graff's "green" - but somewhere I have a note that the first regiment had "blue/green" lacing and tassels, from which I suspect that their "black" is qing, variously rendered blue green or black as noted in my "Chinese Dynastic Colours" Slingshot article a few years ago.

Edit: Is http://www.zggdwx.com/suishu/8.html the original, or the original of a similar passage?

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 27, 2019, 10:52:57 AM
While at it, Graff's Medieval Chinese Warfare p147 says that the first company of each army had iron horse armour with green tassels, attributing this to the Sui shu ch. 8, p160 in a 1973 Zhonghua shuju edition. The second company had horse armour (of unspecified material) with red tassels; nothing is said explicitly here about whether the remaining companies had horse armour, altho Graff's following remarks seem to imply that he takes the Sui shu as saying or implying so - but he also raises the question to whether the described level of equipment was actually reached or merely aspired to.

Er, I was evidently somewhat confused here. The armour is specified per "battalion" (evidently = "regiment" sensu Yang Hong), not "company", so this is saying at least half the "army" had armoured horses.

Anyway, Graff is evidently paraphrasing the same passage as Yang Hong with less detail, so this of limited interest.

In a spasm of enthusiasm, I found the Sui Shu and VERY ROUGHLY translated the bit we are interested in....

Basically its the same story with different emphasis. One difference is that it doesn't mention the 24 armies up front, so its not crystal clear as to whether the troop breakdown is the same for ALL 24 ar,mies, like it is in the ZZTJ. Another difference is that I fund it much harder to find the difference between the 24 armies and the 30 armies (including imperial armies).

Anyway... to the point of interest....

每軍大將、亞將各一人。(Every general's army will have)
騎兵四十隊。(40 dui of cavalry)
隊百人置一纛。(each dui has 100 soldiers)
十隊為團， (10 dui makes up a tuan - a 1000 soldiers)
團有偏將一人。(each tuan has a deputy general)

So far this is about the same as the ZZTJ, but this next bit is unique to the Sui Shu...

第一團，皆青絲連明光甲、鐵具裝、青纓拂，建狻猊旗。
(The first tuan, all have blue silk thread, shiny armor (for the troops), iron horse armour, blue tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it, that would require more effort t understand)

第二團，絳絲連硃犀甲、獸文具裝、赤纓拂，建貔貅旗。
(The second tuan, purple silk thread, rhino skin armour, bestial armour, red tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it)

第三團，白絲連明光甲、鐵具裝、素纓拂，建辟邪旗。
(The third tuan, white silk thread, shiny armour,  iron horse armour, raw silk tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it)

第四團，烏絲連玄犀甲、獸文具裝、建纓拂，建六駁旗。
(The fourth tuan, black thread, black rhino skin armour, bestial armour, tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it)

犀甲 "Rhino skin armour" is leather
獸文具裝 "Bestial horse armour' is I guess leather
光甲 "Shiny armour" could be metal, but it intentionally did not use the kanji for iron (鐵 as in iron horse armour 鐵具裝) so should we think painted or lacquer?

I must confess that I doubted it a bit, but thanks for the references. I feel happier having hunted it down.
So one could infer every single Sui horse had armour... Raises my eyebrow nonetheless, but its a fair reading.
I am going t read on now about the infantry and look for the linkage that says this was all 24 armies, and not one of the 6 imperial, or some other arrangement.

But

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 28, 2019, 09:27:01 PM
Er, I was evidently somewhat confused here. The armour is specified per "battalion" (evidently = "regiment" sensu Yang Hong), not "company", so this is saying at least half the "army" had armoured horses.

Just to address this... I think a fair reading is that all of the cavalry (rider and horses) in this army had armour. But far less than half the army was cavalry... so just wanted to flag a nuance there. Also it's unclear to me as yet how representative the described army is of the other 29...

I meant "half of the cavalry of the army" there, of course. I guess infantry with armoured horses is not wholly impossible, but it'd certainly be odd!

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 29, 2019, 05:45:34 AM
I guess infantry with armoured horses is not wholly impossible, but it'd certainly be odd!

It doesn't actually say the rider where's the shiny armour or the rider wears rhino skin armour. But given that the horse armour is listed separately, I think we can assume that.

Of interest might be the following from the Wikipedia article on rhinos in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceroses_in_ancient_China):

During the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BC) rhinoceros hide was used for armour. The Rites of Zhou specifies:

    "The rhinoceros-hide armour was of seven folds or links, one over another; the wild-buffalo's-hide armour was of six folds or links; and the armour, made of two hides together was of five folds or links. The rhinoceros-hide armour would endure 100 years; the wild-buffalo-hide armour 200 years; and the armour of double hide 300 years."[17]

Footnote 17:
William Raymond Gingell (1852). The Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese: B. C. 1121, as prescribed in the "Institutes of the Chow dynasty strung as pearls;" or, Chow le kwan choo. Smith, Elder, & co. p. 81.

Translation might be a bit dated, but appears to give the general idea.

Quote from: Dangun on January 28, 2019, 11:08:33 PM
第一團，皆青絲連明光甲....
(The first tuan, all have blue silk thread, shiny armor...

光甲 "Shiny armour" could be metal, but it intentionally did not use the kanji for iron (鐵 as in iron horse armour 鐵具裝) so should we think painted or lacquer?

明光甲 - ming guang jia. Ming guang, rendered by Albert Dien as bright-brilliant, is an armour style mentioned quite often in the texts. Some Chinese scholars, I think including Yang Hong, suggest it's the type of armour that has two large iron plaques on the chesst. Dien argues that the descriptor mingguang appears in the texts a couple of centuries before what he calls "cord-and-plaque" armour appears in art, and thinks mingguang (and heiguang, "black-brilliant", paired with it in some texts) are both types of iron lamellar.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 29, 2019, 08:40:11 AM
Of interest might be the following from the Wikipedia article on rhinos in China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceroses_in_ancient_China):
During the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BC) rhinoceros hide was used for armour. The Rites of Zhou specifies:

By the time of the Sui, "rhino-hide armour" was probably a classical literary topos, because rhinos were no longer available in most of China - at least, so http://chinese-unicorn.com/ch16/ suggests, and I recall nothing in the modern writings on armour to make me doubt it.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 29, 2019, 08:40:11 AM
William Raymond Gingell (1852). The Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese: B. C. 1121, as prescribed in the "Institutes of the Chow dynasty strung as pearls;" or, Chow le kwan choo. Smith, Elder, & co. p. 81.

I hear that the emperors of the Chow dynasty were a hungry bunch.

Something funny is going on regarding the date, because 1121 BC is a couple generations before the Zhou dynasty is supposed to have started.

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 29, 2019, 09:29:54 AM

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 29, 2019, 08:40:11 AM
William Raymond Gingell (1852). The Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese: B. C. 1121, as prescribed in the "Institutes of the Chow dynasty strung as pearls;" or, Chow le kwan choo. Smith, Elder, & co. p. 81.

I hear that the emperors of the Chow dynasty were a hungry bunch.

Something funny is going on regarding the date, because 1121 BC is a couple generations before the Zhou dynasty is supposed to have started.

It's one of the traditional start dates, before the modern consensus on chronology was established. For the 19th-century book cited, it would have been bang up to date.

Quote from: Duncan Head on January 29, 2019, 09:09:28 AM
By the time of the Sui, "rhino-hide armour" was probably a classical literary topos, because rhinos were no longer available in most of China - at least, so http://chinese-unicorn.com/ch16/ suggests, and I recall nothing in the modern writings on armour to make me doubt it.

I think it might just mean tough-as-rhino leather armour?

Apparently the main species of rhino in China only became extinct during the 20th century; whether a steady supply of hide would have been available in Sui times is another matter.

This (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu/Chapter_7#Rhinoceros) might be of interest.

In a further exchange of email, David Graff added, "My understanding of this is that 獸文 refers to leather armor with the images of ferocious beasts (such as tigers) painted on," which helpfully confirms group 2 and 4s horse armour was leather.

In the thread above, I had previously described it as, "bestial armour probably leather?"

(80% of Academics are very nice.)

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on January 29, 2019, 09:29:54 AM
I hear that the emperors of the Chow dynasty were a hungry bunch.

It was a Chow-eat-chow existence.

Quote from: Dangun on January 29, 2019, 10:29:11 PM
In a further exchange of email, David Graff added, "My understanding of this is that 獸文 refers to leather armor with the images of ferocious beasts (such as tigers) painted on," which helpfully confirms group 2 and 4s horse armour was leather.

In the thread above, I had previously described it as, "bestial armour probably leather?"

Good translator's instinct there, Nicholas.

Quote from: Dangun on January 29, 2019, 10:29:11 PM
In a further exchange of email, David Graff added, "My understanding of this is that 獸文 refers to leather armor with the images of ferocious beasts (such as tigers) painted on," which helpfully confirms group 2 and 4s horse armour was leather.

Intriguing - I don't recall seeing anything like that illustrated. Perhaps the "images" might be arranged something like this (http://www.ceramicstudies.me.uk/hgrafs11/ch11003wts.gif)? Or perhaps it was just an elaborate monster-head chamfron?

Interesting Duncan do you know when and where that pottery piece is from?

Quote from: Dangun on January 31, 2019, 02:57:15 PM
Interesting Duncan do you know when and where that pottery piece is from?

No. I can only find it on https://www.ceramicstudies.me.uk/frame1tu11.html, which says it's Northern Wei but no more than that.