Rare ‘fish scale’ armour discovered in a Chinese tomb

About 2,500 years ago, a man in northwest China was buried with armour made of more than 5,000 leather scales, a military garment fashioned so intricately, its design looks like the overlapping scales of a fish, a new study finds.

The armour, which resembles an apron-like waistcoat, could be donned quickly without the help of another person. “It is a light, highly efficient one-size-fits-all defensive garment for soldiers of a mass army,” said study lead researcher Patrick Wertmann, a researcher at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich.

The team called it an early example of bionics or taking inspiration from nature for human technology. In this case, the fish-like overlapping leather scales “strengthen the human skin for better defence against the blow, stab and shot,” said study co-researcher Mayke Wagner, the scientific director of the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute and head of its Beijing office. 

Researchers unearthed the leather garment at Yanghai cemetery, an archaeological site near the city of Turfan, which sits at the rim of the Taklamakan Desert. Local villagers discovered the ancient cemetery in the early 1970s. Since 2003, archaeologists have excavated more than 500 burials there, including the grave with the leather armour. Their findings show that ancient people used the cemetery continuously for nearly 1,400 years, from the 12th century B.C. to the second century A.D. While these people did not leave written records, ancient Chinese historians called the people of the Tarim Basin the Cheshi people, and noted that they lived in tents, practised agriculture, kept animals such as cattle and sheep and were proficient horse riders and archers, Wertmann said.

The armour is a rare find. Leather scale armour discovered in the ancient Egyptian tomb of King Tutankhamun, from the 14th century B.C., is the only other well-preserved ancient leather scale armour with a known provenance.

Another well-preserved leather scale armour, housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, dates from the eighth to the third century B.C., but its origin is unknown.

It was a “big surprise” to find the armour, Wagner told Live Science in an email. The researchers found the garment in the grave of a man who died at about age 30 and was buried with several artefacts, including pottery, two-horse cheekpieces made from horn and wood, and the skull of a sheep. 

“At first glance, the dusty bundle of leather pieces [in the burial] … did not arouse much attention among the archaeologists,” Wagner said. “After all, the finds of ancient leather objects are quite common in the extremely dry climate of the Tarim Basin.” 

A reconstruction of the body armour revealed that it sported 5,444 small leather scales and 140 larger scales, likely made of cow rawhide, that was “arranged in horizontal rows and connected by leather laces passing through the incisions,” Wagner said.

The different scaled rows overlap, a style that prompted the Greek historian Herodotus to call similarly fashioned armour, worn by fifth century B.C. Persian soldiers, just like “the scales of a fish,” Wagner noted. 

A plant thorn stuck into the armour gave a radiocarbon date of 786 B.C to 543 B.C., the researchers found, indicating that it was older than the fish-like armour worn by the Persians. According to the team’s reconstruction, the armour would have weighed up to 11 pounds (5 kilograms). 

Utterly unique

The discovery is one of a kind. “There is no other scale armour from this or an earlier period in China,” Wagner said. “In eastern China, armour fragments have been found, but of a different style.”

A deep dive into the history of scaled armour revealed that West Asian engineers developed scale armour to protect chariot drivers in about 1500 B.C. when chariotry became part of the military. After that, this style of armour spread northward and eastward to the Persians and Scythians and eventually to the Greeks. “But for the Greeks, it was always exotic; they preferred other types of armour,” Wertmann told Live Science.

Due to its local uniqueness, it appears that the newly described armour was not made in China, Wagner said. In fact, it looks like Neo-Assyrian military equipment from the seventh century B.C., which is seen in rock carvings, according to The British Museum.

“We suggest that this piece of leather scale armour was probably manufactured in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and possibly also the neighbouring regions,” Wertmann said. If this idea is correct, “then the Yanghai armour is one of the rare actual proofs of West-East technology transfer across the Eurasian continent during the first half of the first millennium B.C.E.,” the researchers wrote in the study.

How was it worn?

The armour mainly protects the front torso, hips, left side and lower back. “This design fits people of different statures because width and height can be adjusted by the thongs,” Wertmann said. Its left-side protection meant the wearer could easily move their right arm.

“It seems the perfect outfit for both mounted fighters and foot soldiers, who have to move rapidly and rely on their own strength,” he added. “The horse cheek pieces which were found in the burial may indicate that the tomb owner was indeed a horseman.”

However, how the armour ended up in the man’s burial “remains a riddle,” Wertmann said. “Whether the wearer of the Yanghai armour himself was a foreign soldier (a man from Turfan) in Assyrian service who was outfitted with Assyrian equipment and brought it home, or he captured the armour from someone else who was there, or whether he himself was an Assyrian or North Caucasian who had somehow ended up in Turfan is a matter of speculation. Everything is possible.”

Archaeologists stunned by China’s ‘unique underwater world’ shrouded in mystery

Hidden in the depths of Qiandao Lake, China, lies a mysterious sunken city. Myriad ornate temples, each intricately carved with the script and perfectly preserved, offer a tantalising glimpse into China’s imperial past. The city, known as Shi Cheng, is 140 feet underwater and was built during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the building dating back to the 2nd century.

Its name loosely translates to “Lion City”, and was once a bustling hub of commerce.

But, when it was drowned in the mid-20th century, it was largely forgotten.

Only in recent years have researchers and the public rediscovered its ancient splendours, many of which were explored during the Smithsonian Channel’s documentary ‘China from above: Mountain and rivers’.

It was here that the documentary’s narrator noted how the islands within the newly formed lake are actually the tops of hills, describing the space beneath them as a “unique underwater world”.

The ancient city was flooded as part of the Chinese government’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ programme and made way for the country’s first hydropower plant.

A landscape containing over 1,000 islands was created, which sits at the bottom of a reservoir close to the Qiandao Lake near the picturesque Wu Shi Mountain.

Lou Shanliang, a diver, was one of the first people to plunge into the lake and find the city.

He told the documentary how he used to swim in the waters as a child, and how finding out what was beneath was like discovering “another world”.

Teaming up with Wu Lixin, a cameraman, the pair used 3D scanning technology in order to bring the city back to life on the surface. Thought to have been built at some point between 25 and 200 AD, Lion City was once one of China’s most powerful cities and held on to this status for centuries.

While it had been forgotten for over 50 years, in 2014, the authorities discovered that the city was still very much intact and decided to start allowing tourists to visit it.

Explaining that their efforts were the first time the city has been captured three-dimensionally, Mr Wu said: “If we want to get a comprehensive set of data, we have to revolve around the object and take many photos from different angles.

“Then, we input those photos into a computer programme.”

What resulted were a series of 3D images revealing the ancient stonework found underwater, including majestic statues of lions and other figures.

Mr Wu said: “I hope that through our filming and exploration more submerged historic relics and the stories behind them can be brought to light again.”

Much of the stonework found in the lake dates to the 16th century and is considered as some of the best examples of Chinese architecture. The divers also found the city walls, which date from the same period, along with some notable wide streets and 265 archways.

In addition to these, they found five entry gates to the city and six main streets paved with stones connected to one another, making the city about the same size as 62 football fields. The Lion City is believed to have reached its peak in history between 1368 and 1644 when the Ming Dynasty ruled over China.

After this point it began to decline, the fatal blow coming in 1959 when the Chinese government flooded it. Now, however, history buffs and keen tourists can visit the lost city for themselves, and even dive beneath the water with guides.

Protected from wind, rain, and sun, the entire city has been branded a “time capsule” as almost every structure remains completely intact, including wooden beams and stairs. There have since been plans to boost its tourism potential by constructing a floating tunnel across the lake.