African knights - African armour collection thread

[LinusLinothorax]

Hm, i have no idea why the order of my images in my first post is suddenly mixed up. After the first picture the order of images should be the other way around.


Anyway, here are other ancient fragments of armour. All of them come from the Sudanic post-Meroitic period again, means the time after the kingdom of Meroe vanished (Around 350-370 AD) and are made of ox-hide (With one exception, which is probably made of crocodile leather). In that time the Nubians became the most dominant people in Sudan and founded own cultures/chiefdoms. The most well known is Nobadia, which stretched roughly from the first to the third Nile-cataract. The mass of found hide-armour fragments (It is assumed that all Nobadian chiefs/kings were burdied in such armours) seems to imply that hide-armour was the dominant armour of that era, allthough Cassius Dio mentions hide-armour already in the third century AD, when it was used by the nomadian Blemmyes living in the desert east of the Nle valley.
Personaly, i assume that these leather armours were the lightest and most archaic form of ancient Sudanese body armour.


1) Hide armour fragment from a royal Nobadian burial in Qustul
2) Nobadian hide armour from Gebel Adda, probably crocodile
3) Nobadian hide armour with lead studs, Qustul (I think)
4) Summary of a found hide armour in Karanog (Which sadly was never
photographed)
5) The supposed Nobadian graffito showing king Silko, very likely wearing
decorated hide armour

Edit: Hm, and again the pictures are depicted the other way around.