Archaeologists Unearth Uncommon ‘Fish Scale’ Armor From 2,000-Yr-Outdated Chinese language Tomb

Researchers from the Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Analysis Institute in China have recovered the stays of a fancy scale armor recovered from an over 2,000-year-old Han Dynasty tomb.

The weird armor consists of a number of supplies, making it the primary of its sort documented from the Han Dynasty, the institute introduced on December 7, as reported by Xinhua News Agency.

The grave belonged to Liu He, a prince who inherited the imperial throne of the Western Han Dynasty (202 BCE to 25 CE) for under 27 days earlier than he was deposed (although not killed). On the time of his loss of life years later, he was generally known as the Marquis of Haihun. Archaeologists found his well-preserved tomb  in east China’s Jiangxi Province in 2011.

中国江西省文物考古研究院は７日、同省南昌市にある前漢時代の諸侯墓、海昏侯劉賀墓から出土した甲冑の甲片の暫定的な整理が完了したと発表した。研究者が甲片約６千枚を復元した結果、漆塗りの鉄と銅、皮を組み合わせた魚鱗甲の一部だと分かった。複数の材質からなる漢代の甲冑が見つかるのは初めて。 pic.twitter.com/mxV3OY0Jgj

— 中国 新華社 日本語 (@XHJapanese) December 10, 2024

Two years in the past, archaeologists found armor scales (also called plates) together with knives and swords in a pile within the armory room of the tomb, based on The History Blog. Given the stays of lacquer—a tough, shiny coating—archaeologists assumed that the armor had initially been packed in now-disintegrated lacquer-coated packing containers.

“The Haihun Hou Tomb had been by earthquakes and rising groundwater ranges because of the growth of the Poyang Lake space, so the armor fragments had been in a fragile state,” Yang Jun of Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and head of the excavation staff who unearthed the grave advised Xinhua News Agency. Over the course of two years, the staff—together with researchers from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese language Academy of Social Sciences and a number of other different establishments—extracted 6,000 armor scales and introduced them to a laboratory for evaluation and restoration.

The armor stood out for the distinctive dimension and materials of its scales. Based on Bai Rongjin of the Institute of Archaeology on the Chinese language Academy of Social Sciences, the scales on Han Dynasty armor usually have a width of 0.39 to three.94 inches (4 to 10 centimeters). The smaller the scales, the extra are required, demanding higher talent to craft such a meticulous piece of kit.

Nonetheless, “The smallest armor piece” from the Marquis of Haihun tomb “is about 1 cm huge and 0.2 cm thick, making it the smallest fish scale armor piece excavated throughout archaeological investigations of Han Dynasty ruins,” he defined. Moreover, archaeologists found that the armor had been fabricated from a number of supplies, together with iron, copper, and leather-based. That is additionally uncommon, as Rongjin famous that Han Dynasty armor was normally composed of a single materials. Actually, the scales are the one documented instance of armor fabricated from a number of supplies from the Han Dynasty.

The armor finally represents a surprising instance of Han Dynasty navy tools, and displays the superb degree of armor manufacturing that existed within the area on the time. Maybe it even means that although Liu He might have been disgraced throughout his lifetime, he was buried with honor.