On the Construction of Ancient Organic Fiber Armors
Just finished writing a four-part series for our friends at BodyArmorNews.com on the construction of archaic armor derived from organic fibrous materials — specifically the linen breastplates of the Ancient Greeks, and the stacked-paper scale armor of China from Ancient times through roughly the 17th or 18th century.
The series is here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.
To give you the short version: Historians don’t know how that kind of armor was constructed, because few or no examples survived the passage of centuries. There’s conjecture along various lines, but by far the most widespread theory is that they were fiber-resin composites – like modern armor composites e.g. a UHMWPE plate or Kevlar helmet – made with alternating fiber and resin layers. This theory, however, is increasingly controversial; there’s no proof of it, and today most historians believe that it is implausible. So the question is: Is there anything new we can say about how that armor was constructed by looking at new historical evidence and modern armor construction? How likely are they to have been composites? Is the composite a 20th century invention, or the rediscovery of a technique used by the Ancients?
Parts One and Two review historical accounts and modern scholarship and find that, although those types of armor are well-attested in primary sources and artwork, details of their construction are indeed ambiguous. There are several possible ways to make each type of armor. Quilting seems likely for linen; hammering and riveting are known ways of making paper armor, and there’s also a variant made with knotted paper cord. Glues and lacquers are mentioned in the construction of both types of armor, but there are, as yet, no details concerning the chemistry or utilization of those glues.
Part Three examines how adding resin to fibrous armor materials affects stab-resistance – and finds that there’s no benefit, and there’s considerable downside in added weight and rigidity. Performance, indeed, may even suffer with resin. Further, most of the evidence examined in Part Three is modern and uses high-performance modern adhesive resins; the organic glues available to the Ancients would have been considerably worse and less consistent. It seems entirely safe to say that resin would not be added to linen or paper to enhance the protective properties of the armor. It’s almost all downside, with essentially no upside. So it becomes highly likely that both types of armor weren’t that type of composite.
Part Four examines why the Greeks and Chinese might have used resins and lacquers in the construction of their armor: As an external sealant layer for water and insect-proofing. For, otherwise, armor made of organic fibers – which was, if not as expensive as forged bronze or iron, still very expensive – would not last very long. There’s even mention in the historical record of paper armor being eaten by maggots, and of Greeks (including a very famous apocryphal Locrian) embarking on naval campaigns in linen armor. Sealant to prevent decay and extend service life, without adding much weight, is highly likely to be how the Ancients used their resins and lacquers in organic armor construction.
There are a couple of testable hypotheses here – though, as no examples of Ancient Greek linen armor have survived, they’re only testable in the few remaining samples of paper armor. The first and most obvious is that surfaces will exhibit resin or lacquer, but there will be little or no resin or lacquer in subsurface layers. The second is that the resin or lacquer will be similar to those conventionally used for waterproofing in those times and places.
