Archaeologists Unearth Uncommon ‘Fish Scale’ Armor From 2,000-Yr-Outdated Chinese language Tomb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 posh scale armor recovered from an over 2,000-year-old Han Dynasty tomb.

The bizarre armor consists of a number of supplies, making it the primary of its type 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 less than 27 days earlier than he was deposed (although not killed). On the time of his dying years later, he was often called 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 referred to as 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 means of earthquakes and rising groundwater ranges as a result of enlargement of the Poyang Lake space, so the armor fragments have 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 instructed 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. In line with 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 better ability to craft such a meticulous piece of apparatus.

Nonetheless, “The smallest armor piece” from the Marquis of Haihun tomb “is about 1 cm extensive 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 made from a number of supplies, together with iron, copper, and leather-based. That is additionally uncommon, as Rongjin famous that Han Dynasty armor was often composed of a single materials. The truth is, the scales are the one documented instance of armor made from a number of supplies from the Han Dynasty.

The armor in the end represents a shocking instance of Han Dynasty army tools, and displays the wonderful degree of armor manufacturing that existed within the area on the time. Maybe it even means that although Liu He could have been disgraced throughout his lifetime, he was buried with honor.