An Old Classic Bronze Age board game ‘played 4,000 years ago’ uncovered in the Oman desert
While innovative and artistic board games may hold our attention today, settlers four millennia ago in the Arabian Peninsula whiled away the time on a stone board game.
The stone board game featured a grid-like pattern and cup holes to hold game pieces.
Last month, archaeologists discovered a stone slab carved with a grid and cup holes to hold game pieces at a prehistoric settlement in the Qumayrah Valley, located in modern-day Oman, reports Samuel Kutty for the Oman Daily Observer.
The team, led by Piotr Bieliński of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology and Sultan al-Bakri, Oman’s director-general of antiquities, found the large stone board in a structure near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah.
In a statement, Bieliński said that similar kinds of games have been found in “areas stretching from India, through Mesopotamia even to the eastern Mediterranean.” She cited, as an example, one of the earliest-known game boards found in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur’s royal cemetery in 1922, dated around 4,500 years ago. Known today as the Royal Game of Ur, the two-player strategy game was similar to backgammon.
Archaeologists search for Bronze and Iron age artefacts at the Oman dig site, located in the Arabian Peninsula.
Board games have been played across the world for thousands of years. In Jerusalem, bored Roman soldiers were believed to have carved a grid for a board game on the steps of the Damascus Gate some 1,800 years ago, possibly an early form of modern-day checkers, as reported by Ruth Schuster for the Jerusalem Post in November.
The stone board game in Oman was just one of several discoveries made at the excavation site, reports Ashley Cowie for Ancient Origins.
Archaeologists also unearthed the remains of stone towers—one of which is believed to have been 60 feet tall—and evidence of copper production all dated to the Bronze Age, from 3200 to 1200 B.C.E.
“The settlement is exceptional for including at least four towers: three round ones and an angular one,” says Agnieszka Pieńkowska of the Polish Center, who is analyzing the site’s artefacts and stone structures.
Researchers at Ayn Bani Saidah dated the settlement to the Umm an-Nar period, between 2600 to 2000 B.C.E. They discovered several copper items and smelting remains at the site, indicating the site was involved in the early copper trade, reports the Jerusalem Post.
An archaeologist examines a copper artefact found at an exvacation site in the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in Oman.
“This shows that our settlement participated in the lucrative copper trade for which Oman was famous at that time, with mentions of Omani copper present in the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia,” says Bieliński in the statement.
The team also found evidence that the region remained an important trade and production site through the second phase of the Iron Age, dating from 1100 to 600 B.C.E.
Per the Oman Observer, the Qumayrah Valley has yielded many archaeological finds, likely due to serving as a major trade route between several Arab cities.
“This abundance of settlement traces proves that this valley was an important spot in Oman’s prehistory,” Bieliński tells Ian Randall of the Daily Mail. “Ayn Bani Sadah is strategically located at a junction of [trade] routes.”
The team plans to continue its excavations this year, focusing on areas surrounding the settlement and other parts of the Qumayrah Valley.
The ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq
An ancient city called ‘Idu’ has been discovered in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Hidden beneath a 32 foot (10 metres) mound, the city is thought to have been a hub of activity between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago.
Inscriptions made for kings in walls, tablets and stone plinths, reveal that it was once filled with luxurious palaces.
The discovery was made five years ago after a local villager found a clay tablet with the name ‘Idu’ carved in.
The ancient city of Idu is now part of a Tell that rises about 32 feet (10 metres) above the surrounding plain. The modern-day name of the site is Satu Qala and a village lies on top of the Tell
It is thought the inscription was made by the local kings celebrating the construction of the royal palace. Archaeologists at the University of Leipzig in Germany spent the next few years excavating the area.
They believe the city of Idu spent much of its time under the control of the Assyrian Empire about 3,300 years ago. But archaeologists also found evidence that it was a fiercely independent city.
A domestic structure, with at least two rooms, that may date to relatively late in the life of the newfound ancient city, perhaps around 2,000 years ago when the Parthian Empire controlled the area in Iraq.
Its people fought for and won, 140 years of independence before they were reconquered by the Assyrians. Among the treasures found were artwork showing a bearded sphinx with a human head and the body of a winged lion.
Above it was the words: ‘Palace of Ba’auri, king of the land of Idu, son of Edima, also king of the land of Idu.’
They also found a cylinder seal dating back roughly 2,600 years depicting a man crouching before a griffon.
‘We were lucky to be one of the first teams to begin excavations in Iraq after the 2003 war,’ archaeologists Cinzia Pappi told MailOnline.
‘The discovery of ancient Idu at Satu Qala revealed a multicultural capital and a crossroad between northern and southern Iraq and between Iraq and Western Iran in the second and first millennia BC.
‘Particularly the discovery of a local dynasty of kings fills a gap in what scholars had previously thought of as a dark age in the history of ancient Iraq.
‘Together these results have helped to redraw the political and historical map of the development of the Assyrian Empire.’
This work shows a bearded sphinx with a human male head and the body of a winged lion. Found in four fragments it was also created for King Ba’auri and has almost the exact same inscription as the depiction of the horse.
The city was hidden beneath a mound, called a tell, which is currently home to a village called Satu Qala.
‘For wide-scale excavations to continue, at least some of these houses will have to be removed,’ said archaeologists Cinzia Pappi
‘Unfortunately, until a settlement is reached between the villagers and the Kurdistan regional government, further work is currently not possible.’
Archaeologists plan to continue excavating the site once they reach an agreement.
In the meantime, a study on the materials from the site, now stored in the Erbil Museum of Antiquities, has just been completed in co-operation with the University of Pennsylvania.
Together, the researchers will explore the surrounding area to determine the extent of the kingdom of Idu in its regional context
The findings have been reported in the journal Anatolica.
Archaeologists are currently busy analysing artefacts already excavated. They also plan to survey the surrounding area to get a better sense of how large the kingdom of Idu was
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
Photo provided by the Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology on Jan. 5, 2022, shows a horse buried with the dead at the Shaojiapeng site, which is decorated with shell strings. (Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology/Handout via Xinhua)
A large-scale tomb cluster dating back to the late Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) was recently discovered in Shaojiapeng Village, Anyang City of central China’s Henan Province, according to the city’s institute of cultural relics and archaeology.
Located 2.4 km away from the palace and ancestral temple of the Yin Ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Shaojiapeng site is believed to be a major living area for a clan named “Ce” in the Shang Dynasty.
The Chinese character “Ce” was found on the inscription of bronzeware uncovered in the cemetery relics, which indicates the identity of the clan.
A total of 18 building foundations, 24 tombs, four-horse and chariot pits, along with relics including exquisite bronzeware, jade and stone objects, bone ware and mussels, were found during the two-year excavation of the site.
Six carriages and several warriors and horses buried with the dead were uncovered in the pits, with luxurious decorations on the relics.
Some warriors were found wearing hats with shell strings and the foreheads of some horses were decorated with gold veneer and bronze backing.
“This is very rare among the ancient discoveries of Anyang, reflecting the extraordinary status and power of the carriage owner,” said Kong Deming, director of the institute.
The researchers are still working on unlocking the remaining mysteries of the site, including the social status of the clan, their division of labour and their relationship with the Shang royal family.
The relics at the site are diverse and relatively well-preserved, making them of great significance to studies on the scope and layout of the Yin Ruins, according to Kong.
7,200-year-old skeleton unearthed in Indonesia reveals unknown human group
The ancient remains of a hunter-gatherer girl who died over 7,000 years ago in Indonesia, has revealed clues to a mysterious group of humans from the past. The discovery, made in 2015, in the Leang Panninge cave on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is the first discovery of ancient human DNA in the region, known as Wallacea.
In a study published, Griffith University archaeology professor and study co-author Adam Brumm said the girl, nicknamed Bessé,’ belonged to a mysterious group of modern humans from the Holocene era who archaeologists have named the Toaleans.
It is the first time an intact skeleton of the Toalean people had been found.
“We’ve got ancient DNA from the bones of this woman, but we could only reconstruct about 2 per cent of her complete genome,” Brumm told the ABC. “So that’s how degraded it was and it took a lot of work to get even that.”
Sulawesi is the largest island in Wallacea. White shaded areas represent landmasses exposed during periods of lower sea level in the Late Pleistocene.
Burial of the hunter-gatherer Toalean woman.
Through DNA analysis, archaeologists have confirmed a theory that the Toaleans were related to the first humans who lived in Wallacea around 65,000 years ago and could also tie the girl to the Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.
Half of Bessé’s genome is shared with present-day Aboriginals, Papuans, and Western Pacific Islander peoples. She was also partly related to the older human ancestors the Denisovans, whose remains have been found in Tibet and Siberia.
Further analysis found that Bessé’ also had strong genetic ties to an ancient Asian group of people who did not mingle with the ancestors of Aboriginals and Papuans.
“A really unexpected discovery is that within the DNA of this ancient woman, we found ancestry from a very ancient Asian population,” Brumm said. “We don’t know quite who they were.”
Excavations at Leang Panninge cave.
Prof. Akin Duli from the University of Hasanuddin said this meant the population and genetic history of early humans in the region were more complex than previously thought.
“It is unlikely we will know much about the identity of these early ancestors of the Toaleans until more ancient human DNA samples are available from Wallacea,” Duli said.
However, finding more preserved remains, like Bessé’s, is extremely difficult given the tropical, humid weather of the region.
Just two other DNA samples have been found in the whole region and they come from Laos and Malaysia.
Bessé’ has no relation to the present-day people of Sulawesi, which is unsurprising given they are known to be largely descended from people who came from the Taiwanese region 3,500 years ago.
The Toaleans have been a century-old archaeological mystery since the discovery of unique, finely crafted arrowheads in several southern Sulawesi caves in 1902.
Undated Toalean stone arrowheads, backed microliths, and bone projectile points.
India’s largest known burial site is 4,000 yrs old, confirms carbon dating
One day in 2005, Shriram Sharma, a farmer from Sanauli village Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district, was carrying about his day, and ploughing his field. Little did he know that what was otherwise part of his daily routine would lead to an accidental discovery of skeletons and copper pots, which would one day raise questions on ancient global history.
He alerted the local media about his discovery, and soon, a team from the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) had arrived at the scene, to begin digging deep into three bighas (0.40052356 acres) of Sharma’s land. The first round of excavations lasted for 13 months, during which they found chariots, coffins, pots, skeletons, what could arguably be the world’s oldest copper helmet, and more, tentatively dating back to 2000 BCE.
Interestingly, most wooden artefacts were layered with copper sheaths, inlays, and wires, which prevented them from decomposing for nearly 4,000 years. “In the area where we excavated furnaces, we suspect that the superstructure was made of wood. But the sediment is very difficult to work with and retrieving wood impression is particularly tricky. Thank God for the copper inlays and covering, which helped us identify the findings,” Disha Ahluwalia, who was appointed the site-in charge in February, tells The Better India.
The carbon dating tests confirmed that the burial site — where 125 burials were discovered — is 4,000 years old.
The most striking aspect of the excavation has been the discovery of three chariots, which bring up questions regarding the Aryan Invasion theory. The design and size of the chariot indicate they were horse-driven and were contemporary to the Mesopotamian and Sumerian culture. According to historians, the horses were brought from Central Asia by the invading Aryan army around 1500 BC. Besides, the Harappan civilisation had chariots driven by bulls.
The ASI carried two more rounds (in 2018 and 2019) of meticulous digging thereafter, bringing forth several intriguing theories and discoveries about the Sanauli burial site.
Needless to say, Sanauli has caught everyone’s attention, as these discoveries could be a major chapter piecing together history in this century. Discovery Plus recently released a 55-minute documentary called ‘Secrets of Sanauli — Discovery of the Century, made by director Neeraj Pandey and compered by Manoj Bajpayee. It follows the archaeological findings and questions the western hegemonic narratives. The theories, history and language have been simplified by experts including Dr VN Prabhakar – IIT Gandhinagar, Dr BR Mani – National Museum, and so on.
Did Sanuali coexist with the Harappan civilisation?
The archaeologists found a slew of antiques such as chariots, a torch, an antenna sword, highly decorated coffins, and helmets. The astonishingly well-preserved remains are similar to those found in the late Harappan phase. However, the Orche-Coloured Pottery (OCP) and copper-coated items are reasons enough to dismiss that Sanauli was part of the late Harappan phase. Hence, it could be that Sanauli was another Chalcolithic culture that existed alongside Harappa.
“The 2005 excavations helped us discover pottery of different sizes, besides beads and other material that were similar to those used in the Harappan civilisation. However, a chariot near a coffin is not seen anywhere in the Harappan sites,” Dr Sanjay Kumar Manjul, director of the ASI’s Institute of Archaeology and in-charge of the excavation, told Outlook.
Further, the bricks found on the in-situ site are different as well, “The Harappan bricks are smaller than Sanauli, but excavators could not identify the alignment or make sense of the structure. This has left many questions unanswered,” says Disha.
Explaining the process of identifying the bricks and discovering a new element with Dr Manjul, she says, “After days of strenuous work, we noticed one brick in the structure was perfectly horizontal, and others which were falling. This one brick gave the impression that it is supported by some sort of structure or more bricks underneath. I decided to undercut the section and we found the fourth side of the collapsed wall. We understood that there are two layers to this structure and that it’s not a platform, but instead a walled structure. What was interesting was that two sides of the structure had collapsed inwards, whereas the third wall that I found after undercutting the section was outwards. As the level of the base was the same as that of the burial pits, it suggested that this was a structure built in a pit, where the two sides that collapsed inwards were supported by the natural sediment and then the rest of the structure was above the ground with a wooden superstructure. We could see the heavy use of wood everywhere.”
Of royalty & warfare
In 2018’s digging, the ASI team unearthed other items that gave further insight into the culture of Sanauli including warfare and royal borough.
The fresh evidence, comprising eight burials, screams of evidence of an elite class. A decorated horn comb with a peacock motif, copper mirror, armlet made of agate beads, vases, and bowls are a few examples of this. One royal coffin had a decorated lid with eight anthropomorphic figures such as headgear, and pipal leaf. A copper armour shaped like a torso was another item. Besides, ceramic pots were found next to the coffins, suggesting the possibility of rituals that were performed before the person was buried.
The burials also hinted that the tribe consisted of warriors who used technologically advanced weaponry. For example, the antenna sword was placed in an upright position next to the skeletons of both, males and females (yes, women also may have fought wars as per Dr Manjul). Additionally, the swords have copper-covered hilts and medial ridge, which are sturdy enough for war.
The three chariots made of wood and covered with thick copper sheets also denote wars. Unlike the ones found in Harappan culture, these chariots were smaller in size with thinner carts. This means that they could accommodate a maximum of two people according to Dr Manjul. Hence, they weren’t used as carriers. The chariots are two-wheeled and are fixed on an axle. This was supposedly linked to the yoke of a pair of animals by a long rope.
Helmets and shields further affirm the possibility. Interestingly, the ASI team believes that the helmet could be the world’s oldest. “If you see the documentary, the excavator says ‘helmet’ or ‘copper pot’. But earlier, the excavator suggested that it’s a copper helmet. We are yet to be sure. It could be the earliest, because if it is a helmet, then no other such object predates Sanauli. The ones in the West are of later dates. But in my opinion, we should conduct more analysis,” says Disha.
Meanwhile, the shields had two gender-specific designs. The ones found next to women had steatite inlay work and men burials had ones with copper designs.
According to Dr Manjul, the ASI team had used modern and scientific techniques such as X-Ray, Handheld XRF, 3D scanning, CT scan and drone and Magnetometer surveys to analyse the startling findings. Both Dr Manjul, as well as Disha, reiterate that more studies will be conducted to unearth specific historic events and significance in future.
Watch Dr Manjul’s presentation on the artefacts here:
Archaeologists stunned by ancient Babylonian device: ‘More advanced than we thought’
Babylon was the city where some of the most influential empires of the ancient world ruled. For a long time, it was the capital of the Babylonian Empire, and was considered to be the global centre of commerce, art and learning, and is even estimated to have been the largest early city in the world — perhaps the first to reach a population of more than 200,000 people.
Today, it resembles more of an archaeological excavation site in progress and has only several thousand residents and a few villages within its boundaries. It holds some of the greatest secrets of the ancient world, including the Tower of Babel, which is first mentioned in Genesis in the Bible.
In 1894, Edgar Banks, an American archaeologist, discovered a stone device and sold it to antique collector George Plimpton. He eventually passed it on to Columbia University in the 1930s, and the tablet is today known as Plimpton 322.
Archaeology: Researches have been stunned by the Babylonian tablet
Babylon: The ancient city is located in modern-day Iraq
At the time, researchers did not realise how important the tablet was, and it was not until 1945 that experts realised it contained Pythagorean triples.
But then the tablet was forgotten, and it was not until this year that Dr Daniel Mansfield, from the University of New South Wales, Australia, was given access to it, revealing the full extent of the device’s wonder.
Speaking to the BBC’s reel exploring the tablet, titled, ‘Evidence ancient Babylonians were far more advanced than we thought, he described it as the, “most interesting, most sophisticated mathematical document from the ancient world”.
It tells us that past civilisations understood mathematics a lot better than we thought.
In particular, it shows how the Mesopotamians understood Pythagorean triples at a level of sophistication “that we never expected”, according to Dr Mansfield.
Ancient tablet: The clay tablet shows how the Babylonians used Pythagorean triples
Traditionally, the history of geometry starts in Ancient Greece, where astronomers used the technique to understand the movement of celestial bodies through the night sky. The most famous relation in geometry is the relation between the sides and the hypotenuse of a right triangle, in modern times known as Pythagoras’ Theorem.
But, as Dr Mansfield noted: “In reality, elements of this understanding are apparent throughout history.”
The tablet proves that about a thousand years before the Greek astronomers were looking at the night sky, Babylonian surveyors had their own unique understanding of right triangles and rectangles.
But, rather than using the technique to look at the night sky, they applied it on the ground in day-to-day life.
They did not have what we today call the theorem.
Pythagoras: Some of the calculations found on the tablets
Dr Daniel Mansfield: The Australian researcher further deciphered the tablet’s engravings
Instead, they knew all the particular cases where the theorem held true, myriad examples of rectangles that had pleasant, easy to manage measurements. New research from Dr Mansfield and his team has since shed light on a long-standing mystery: how the ancient Babylonians may have actually used these tablets.
He explained: “This tablet shows us that the application is actually surveying, these people are making boundaries and making really accurate boundaries using their understanding of geometry.
“Pure mathematics is the study of mathematics for its own sake.
Ancient history: One of the tablets that were used during the research project
“But it’s often motivated by the problems of the day.
“Plimpton 322 arguably fits into this category because we see a mathematician generating all these rectangles and then analysing them to see which ones have regular sides, which is a relevant problem in contemporary surveying.”
The tablet shows us that Babylonian surveying became a lot more accurate during this time.
Mesopotamia: The region is believed to have been at the centre of global commerce, art and culture
The real utopia: This ancient civilisation thrived without war
Many believe the idea of a utopian society is an impossible fantasy. But there may have been one mysterious, ancient group of people that was able to fulfil the dream of life without conflict or rulers.
Remains of the Indus civilisation, which flourished from 2600 to 1900 BC, show no clear signs of weapons, war or inequality. Many believe the idea of a utopian society is an impossible fantasy.
But there may have been one mysterious, ancient group of people that was able to fulfil the dream of life without conflict or rulers.
Many people believe that one mysterious, ancient society may have led a Utopian life. The Indus civilisation flourished from 2600 to 1900 BC, and it has been suggested that they lived in a real, functioning utopia
Remains of the Indus civilisation, which flourished from 2600 to 1900 BC, show no clear signs of weapons, war or inequality.
Robinson points out that archaeologists have uncovered just one depiction of humans fighting, and it is a partly mythical scene showing a female goddess with the horns of a goat and the body of a tiger.
There is also no evidence of horses – an animal that late became common in the region – suggesting they were not use to raid other towns and cities.
In the almost 100 years since the Indus civilisation was discovered, not a single royal palace or grand temple has been uncovered.
Mohenjo-daro – an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan – is 400 metres long, and five metres tall, and would have required a huge amount of man power to build
Speaking to Robinson, Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum, said: ‘What’s left of these great Indus cities gives us no indication of a society engaged with, or threatened by, war.
‘Is it going too far to see these Indus cities as an early, urban Utopia?’.
While Mr MacGregor sees the utopian theory as credible, others cast doubt on the total absence of war.
Richard Meadow, Director of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, said: ‘There has never been a society without conflict of greater or lesser scale.’
He argues that until the Indus script is deciphered, we cannot really know whether they lived this idyllic life. Large societies are usually overseen by a central government, yet findings suggest otherwise for the Indus civilisation.
So far, the only sculpture that might depict a ruler is of a bearded man, dubbed the ‘priest-king’ – due to his resemblance to Buddhist monks and Hindu priests.
Many of the structures and buildings, however, would have taken the coordination of tens of thousands of men, which some argue would have required a leader of sorts.
For example, Mohenjo-Daro – an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan – required a huge amount of manpower to build.
The Indus covered more than 1,000 settlements across at least 800,000 square kilometres of what is now Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Its remains were only discovered in the 1920s, yet it is now regarded as the beginning of Indian civilisation
Andrew Robinson, author of several books about the Indus, believes the key in understanding this civilisation, is cracking their script
The bust of the king or priest found in Mohenjo-Daro is shown on the left. The right image shows the lower town of the Mohenjo Daro archaeological site
While the Indus might sound like they lived a utopian fantasy, the civilisation mysteriously came to an end in around 1900 BC. Robinson believes the key in understanding this civilisation, is deciphering their script.
In an article published in Nature last year, he said: ‘More than 100 attempts at decipherment have been published by professional scholars and others since the 1920s.
‘Now – as a result of increased collaboration between archaeologists, linguists and experts in the digital humanities – it looks possible that the Indus script may yield some of its secrets.’
A board game was discovered from the Indus Valley Civilisation. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Old World
2,700-year-old leather armor proves technology transfer happened in antiquity
Researchers at the University of Zurich have investigated a unique leather scale armour found in the tomb of a horse rider in Northwest China. Design and construction details of the armour indicate that it originated in the Neo-Assyrian Empire between the 6th and 8th centuries BCE before being brought to China.
In 2013, a nearly complete leather scale armour was found in the tomb of an approx. 30-year-old male near the modern-day city of Turfan in Northwest China.
This unprecedented find, which survived the millennia thanks to the area’s extremely arid climate, provided the international team led by Patrick Wertmann from the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich with new insights on the spread of military technology during the first millennium BCE.
The ancient leather shed armour could be dated to the period between 786 and 543 BC.
Scale armours protect the vital organs of fighters like an extra layer of the skin without restricting their mobility. The armours were made of small shield-shaped plates arranged in horizontal rows and sewn onto a backing.
Due to the costly materials and laborious manufacturing process, armours were very precious, and wearing them was considered a privilege of the elite. It was rare for them to be buried with the owner. However, the emergence of powerful states with large armies in the ancient world led to the development of less precious but nevertheless effective armours made of leather, bronze or iron for ordinary soldiers.
Standard military equipment for horsemen
The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the armour to between 786 and 543 BCE.
It was originally made of about 5,444 smaller scales and 140 larger scales, which together with leather laces and lining weighed between 4 and 5kg.
The armour resembles a waistcoat that protects the front of the torso, hips, sides and the lower back of the body. It can be put on quickly without the help of another person and fits people of different statures.
“The armour was professionally produced in large numbers,” says Patrick Wertmann. With the increasing use of chariots in Middle Eastern warfare, a special armour for horsemen was developed from the 9th century BCE.
These armours later became part of the standardized equipment of military forces of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which extended from parts of present-day Iraq to Iran, Syria, Turkey and Egypt.
Two armors, distinct units
While there is no direct parallel to the 2,700-year-old armour in the whole of Northwest China, there are some stylistic and functional similarities to a second contemporary armour of unknown origin held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the Met).
It is possible that the two armours were intended as outfits for distinct units of the same army, i.e. the Yanghai armour for cavalry and the armour in the Met for infantry.
It is unclear whether the Yanghai armour belonged to a foreign soldier working for the Assyrian forces who brought it back home with him, or whether the armour was captured from someone else who had been to the region.
“Even though we can’t trace the exact path of the scale armour from Assyria to Northwest China, the find is one of the rare actual proofs of West-East technology transfer across the Eurasian continent during the early first millennium BCE,” says Wertmann.
