Jurchen - Jin Armour

[Swampster]

...or possibly Liao.

Years ago, someone - perhaps Tom Adamson - told me about the colours of armour used by certain units of, IIRC, the Jin.

I think it might have been one lacquered black, one lacquered red and one left bare iron. Can anyone confirm these colours?

Sorry for being rather vague.

Cheers.

[Duncan Head]

Peter,

I'm not sure if it is the reference you were thinking of or not, but Russell Robinson in Oriental Armour has the following:

At the court of the Emperors of the Kin Dynasty (1115-1234) in Peking the guards were all clad in armour. The guards on the left were all wearing banded cuirasses coloured blue (ts'ing t'ao kia) holding flags bearing yellow dragons. On the right the guards were wearing banded cuirasses coloured red (hung t'ao kia) holding flags bearing red dragons. (M. Chavannes, T'oung Pao, 1904, pp.163-192)

(archaic transliterations retained!)

The "banded" cuirasses are probably referring to horizontal bands of lamellae. Paintings of Jin troops, such as those at http://military.china.com/zh_cn/dljl/songchao/01/11044627/20100427/15912046.html, generally show plain iron, so the coloured armour was probably restricted to the guards.

[Swampster]

Thnaks Duncan. There is a vaguer reference to this in one of the Ospreys. I forgot to look in the Robinson book, even though I have it.
The source HRR used is here http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5436025g/f200.image (in French). It also mentions white lances for those in the exterior galleries, and gold for those within.

I'm painting up some samples of the new Jurchen from Khurasan.

[Duncan Head]

I'm painting up some samples of the new Jurchen from Khurasan.

Lucky you!

[Duncan Head]

Oddly, the T'oung pao article does not contain the Chinese terms that HRR quotes for the armour (hung t'ao kia etc), and Chavannes' phrasing "des cuirasses avec des cordons bleus" might be thought to refer simply to lamellar armour with blue or red lacing.

[Swampster]

I wonder if there is an significance that the horse armour on the Lady Wenji* paintings tends to have either blue trim or red trim. It is difficult to tell whether the riders' armour matches, though the lacing here seems to be buff.

I now have to decide whether to leave the one I've painted so far - with red lacquered armour - as it is, or repaint. I'll do the 'Iron Pagoda' figures with iron rider, black horse armour but have two more figures which have horse armour but less complete armour for the riders.


*Which I think are thought to be Khitan but they are fairly similar to the Jurchen you linked to so may give some clues.

[Duncan Head]

Looks to me like blue or blue-grey trim on the black leather horse-armour and red trim on the one iron example, though I haven't checked through the whole Wenji scroll.