Tibetan Lamellar Armour, or Chainmail?

[Dangun]

I had a question that those on the forum might have some thoughts about...

What is the evidence for lamellar armour in Tibet during the Tibetan Imperial period (6th to 9th C.)?

From what I have read so far, lamellar armour has never been found archaeologically in Tibet, and the earliest extant lamellar armour in Tibet is dated to the 14th C.

There is a quote in the New Tang History that says, "The [Tibetan's] armour and helmet are very strong and cover the whole body, with holes for the eyes only, so the strongest bow and sharpest sword can hardly do them much harm." (Bushell, p. 442) At best this implies metal armour, but tells us nothing about the type of armour.

So I wondered what DBA did with this...

The DBA lists specifically say that, "man and horse were mailed." This was odd for two reasons. Firstly, its talking about mail not lamellar, and secondly I didn't know where the "mailed" idea came from.

The DBA list offers two references, one of which is Ranitzsch's, Army of Tang China. On page 72 it says, "From a Chinese history: "The men and horses all wear chain mail armour. Its workmanship is extremely fine. It envelops them completely, leaving openings only for the two eyes. Thus strong bows and sharp swords cannot harm them..."

This is clearly what DBA is quoting, "men and horses all wear chain mail armour," but it struck me that this is a more elaborate translation of what Bushell was translating.

So what does the original Chinese say...
"其鎧胃精良，衣之周身，竅兩目，勁弓利刃不能甚傷" (New Book of Tang, 230.2)

I think this translates into merely...
"The armour is excellent, it covers the whole body except holes for the eyes, strong bows and swords have no effect."
So both Bushell and whatever source Ranitzsch used, have to different degrees over elaborated, I think. It doesn't mean the wrong, just that the evidence offered doesn't support the conclusion. There may well be other evidence! I am hoping one of the forum-eers could point me at it!

Maybe we might infer from the Chinese that the armour was metal because the word for armour 鎧 contains the particle for metal 金.

So my original question expands from what is the evidence for Imperial Tibetan lamellar armour, to include is there any better evidence for Imperial Tibetan chain mail?

The Tangshu quote seems to support excellent metal armour, but does not support chainmail, helmets, all men, barding etc...

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

[Andreas Johansson]

FWIW, acc'd Fredholm, mail was (?re)introduced in the seventeenth century, replacing lamellar. The article doesn't really have anything to say on the Imperial period, but you might find it interesting nevertheless.

Also, note that Phil Barker at times seems to use "mailed" loosely, as a mere synonym for "armoured". See e.g. the DBR definition of the Sipahi troop type as "mailed asiatic or east european cavalry equally ready to charge fiercely or to skirmish" - in practice horsemen are classed as the troop type without regard for what sort of armour they're wearing. So perhaps the DBA description shouldn't be read as indicating literal mail.

[Erpingham]

Time to raid the OED again

Mail : a. Armour composed of interlaced rings or chain-work or of overlapping plates fastened upon a groundwork. coat of mail: see coat n. 5.  Some modern scholars restrict the definition to a defence of interlinked rings.

chain-, plate-, ring-mail, etc.: see the first element.

So PB is using a legitimate, if old-fashioned, use of the word mail to mean a flexible armour.

[Andreas Johansson]

So PB is using a legitimate, if old-fashioned, use of the word mail to mean a flexible armour.

Cool

(Next line of querulous defense: the OED definition wouldn't seem to encompass quilt armour, which some DBR "Siphai" have.)

[Erpingham]

So PB is using a legitimate, if old-fashioned, use of the word mail to mean a flexible armour.

Cool

(Next line of querulous defense: the OED definition wouldn't seem to encompass quilt armour, which some DBR "Siphai" have.)

No, I think mail has to be a hard flexible armour.

[Dangun]

So PB is using a legitimate, if old-fashioned, use of the word mail to mean a flexible armour.

Its possible...
But he referenced a book, and seemed to be quoting almost verbatim from that same book - a book which says chainmail.
So I think its more likely an error, unless its an idea that came from another place.

(And I think technically its not true anyway because while according to the OED, "mail is... overlapping plates fastened upon a groundwork," one of the identifying points of lamellar is that there is no groundwork the lamallae are fastened only to each other. I think?)

OK, but whatever Barker thought he was communicating... Ranitzsch (Barker's source) uses chainmail for Imperial Tibetans. So if that is to be doubted, any thoughts on when sources for lamellar's first appearance in Tibet?

Andreas - thanks for the reference. Always appreciated!

[Andreas Johansson]

But he referenced a book, and seemed to be quoting almost verbatim from that same book - a book which says chainmail.

Actually, he's quoting himself from the DBMM list notes. Now those in turn may be based on the Ranitzsch book, I don't know, but the "References" in the DBA 3.0 book should be understood as Further Reading, not as necessarily the sources the list and notes were built from.

[Dangun]

FWIW, acc'd Fredholm, mail was (?re)introduced in the seventeenth century, replacing lamellar.

I thought this article was really interesting regarding armour.

But it posits that, "the mid-seventeenth century introduction of firearms [to Tibet, came] from in particular Bhutan."

This seems unlikely because:
* Bhutan was created in the 16th C. by Tibetan refugees
* We have both a European source and a Bhutanese source that says there were no firearms in Bhutan in the 1620s
* We have a description of Tibetans with firearms invading Bhutan in the 1640s??

Since he hasn't referred to any of the Bhutanese material on this subject, I think his argument is bad.

[Duncan Head]

First, this is not a question of the loose usage of "mail". I would need to check my notes, but from memory there is more than one version of this Chinese passage on Tibetan armour, all of which seem to go back to a common source. The Tongdian version is cited in translation at Wikipedia:

The men and horses all wear chain mail armor. Its workmanship is extremely fine. It envelops them completely, leaving openings only for the two eyes. Thus, strong bows and sharp swords cannot injure them. Their archery is weak but their armor is strong.

So the specific reference to the armour as being "mail" is in the sentence before the one that Nick translates. I think from memory that it is something quite specific like "iron link armour". There are also Tibetan references (one I recall in Eric Haarh's The Yarlung Dynasty), though I am less sure how precise the language is. In addition there's a Christopher Beckwith article on sources for pre-Imperial Tibet which gives one or two references to different Qiang groups using iron mail.

Evidence for lamellar includes the Miran leather lamellar fragment, often simply called "Tang" - which it is chronologically but it was found in a Tibetan fort - and recently a couple of cavalrymen illustrated on a painted coffin-panel who seem to be wearing lamellar.

[Duncan Head]

One more description of Tibetan soldiers that mentions armour:

As for the five types of soldiers, they are: those armoured soldiers with the five types of human armour or horse armour; two: those who, though armoured, are fleet-footed (rkang-rings); three: those wearing armour and breastplate (go phub gon); four: those who, in formation, pursue sheep (bshar lug 'ded) and five: those who carry the soft and the lazy ('bol blag khur)

Or if your prefer the original:

dmag sna lnga ni/ mi zhub rta zhub rnam lnga zhub dang bcas pa/ zhub kyang rkang rings dang gnyis/ go phub gon dang gsum/ bshar lug 'ded dang bzhi/ 'bol glag khur dang lnga'o/

From Dotson's thesis pp.280-281

[Andreas Johansson]

Eric Haarh's The Yarlung Dynasty

If anyone else is interested in checking this out, note that the correct author name and title appear to be Erik Haarh and The Yar-luṅ dynasty (that's an n with a dot above) respectively.

[Dangun]

The Tongdian version is cited in translation at Wikipedia:

The men and horses all wear chain mail armor. Its workmanship is extremely fine. It envelops them completely, leaving openings only for the two eyes. Thus, strong bows and sharp swords cannot injure them. Their archery is weak but their armor is strong.

OK, I will try and dig out the original from the Tongdian. It will be interesting if it is different.

But the quote from the Book of Tang says:

其鎧胃精良，(The armour and helmet are very strong)
衣之周身，(it covers the whole body)
竅兩目，(holes for the eyes only)
勁弓利刃不能甚傷 (strong bows and swords can do it no harm)

The sentences directly preceding it ... 其畜牧，逐水草無常所 is about provisioning.

So in the Tang shu, there is no chain mail. The best you can get (with some inference) is metal armour.

and recently a couple of cavalrymen illustrated on a painted coffin-panel who seem to be wearing lamellar.

Duncan, do you have a reference for this? I'd love to look it up.

Assuming chainmail preceded lamellar, are there any dates for the transition?

[Duncan Head]

Beckwith p.110 n.7 suggests that the Tang liu dian version of the armour quotation may be the original (or at least the oldest he knows).

For the coffin panels, https://www.academia.edu/5060988/OBSERVATIONS_ON_PAINTED_COFFIN_PANELS_OF_THE_TIBETAN_EMPIRE - colour pic on p.147, and maximum magnification!

Oh - see also https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/handle/10900/49223 p.350 of the pdf for what may be another (fragmentary) Tibetan armoured cavalryman in what could even be mail.

[Dangun]

Thanks for the Beckwith link, because that reference gives the quote.

人馬俱披鎖子甲，(men and horses all wear chain-armour)
其制甚精, (it is excellent)
周體皆遍, (covers them completely)
唯開兩眼,(only holes for the eyes)
非勁弓利刃之所能傷也 (strong bows or swords can not injure them)

Its in Tongdian chapter 190 the section on Tibet subsection 3.

The key bit is 鎖子甲 (lock or chain armour) which is different to the expression used in the Tang shu 鎧 (metal armour)

Cool! Source identified!

[Duncan Head]

Excellent!

Oh, and:

Assuming chainmail preceded lamellar, are there any dates for the transition?

I'm not sure I would make that assumption. And whichever came first, I would not be at all surprised if both were in use together for most of the "Imperial" period, perhaps even with lamellar worn over mail. Many years ago Karl Heinz Ranitzsch published a short Slingshot article with a drawing of a tomb figurine, supposedly Tibetan, which he'd found in some German summary of Chinese archaeological finds; it was a cavalryman on an unarmoured horse with a short lamellar cuirass over dark-coloured arms, legs, and IIRC coif, and I wondered if the dark bits could be mail.