African knights - African armour collection thread

[Jim McDougall]

Linus, welcome to the forum, and thank you for bringing up an indeed intriguing topic!
It is true that many warrior groups in North Africa followed medieval warfare and weaponry remarkably in anachronistically surreal character. The use of mail, and various forms of armour, weapons and cavalry tactics had evolved over centuries in certain Sahelian kingdoms such as Bornu. These styles and weapons were likely brought into being through the Mamluk dynasties in Egypt and Syria, with weaponry and armour being diffused into Sudan then toward Chad and Nigeria. Certainly many of these kinds of items were carried through trade routes from European sources into Africa as well. With the volume of sword blades known to have come in, there must have been other equipment included as well.

By the time of the Mahdist period and the subsequent campaigns ending with Omdurman, there were indeed cavalry for the Egyptian Khedive he called his 'iron men'. Surprisingly, much of the mail worn by these warriors was actually produced in Birmingham, England. In time it was realized that this mail, when hit by bullets became shrapnel itself and maximized wounds.

Still, as far as ceremonially, mail was still very much 'parade oriented', just as in India and many other colonially occupied ethnographic regions.
I believe mail was still produced in Omdurman in times as late as the 1960s and think it was Arkell who wrote on this.
I can recall in one grouping of Sudanese armour, there was at least one helmet which incredibly was using a spoon from a silverware setting as a noseguard or decoration.

For the record though, the wearing of mail was not confined only to Africa in relatively modern times. In Caucasian Georgia, during the early years of WWI, Russian forces were astounded to see armoured horsemen ride into Tiflis, with helmets and mail as if right out of the Crusades. They were Khevsur warriors who were still wearing these armours into the 1930s.

There are many other instances as well of these incredibly out of time instances, and hope to see others brought in.
Great topic!!!

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Still, as far as ceremonially, mail was still very much 'parade oriented', just as in India and many other colonially occupied ethnographic regions.

Jim, what makes you say this? Riveted mail from Indian, Persia and the Ottoman Empire was some of the strongest mail ever made, and in hand to hand combat it would keep you from being cut to pieces by a sword, mail of any type was never meant to be a defense against firearms.

In Japan, when traditional armor had been stored away unused for generations, mail armor was still worn by samurai right up to the end.

Much of the fighting in the Sudan involved intense hand to hand combat, I am sure that good quality riveted mail was highly valued, even the locally produced Sudanese butted mail was a good defense against a sword.

Some very late Indo-Persian mail was butted instead of being riveted, but there was still plenty of the old riveted mail to go around.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by estcrh

Jim, what makes you say this? Riveted mail from Indian, Persia and the Ottoman Empire was some of the strongest mail ever made, and in hand to hand combat it would keep you from being cut to pieces by a sword, mail of any type was never meant to be a defense against firearms.

In Japan, when traditional armor had been stored away unused for generations, mail armor was still worn by samurai right up to the end.

Much of the fighting in the Sudan involved intense hand to hand combat, I am sure that good quality riveted mail was highly valued, even the locally produced Sudanese butted mail was a good defense against a sword.

Some very late Indo-Persian mail was butted instead of being riveted, but there was still plenty of the old riveted mail to go around.

I was referring more to the Sudanese instance, and even then of course it would defer a degree of impact from swords etc........so what I should have qualified was that while much of the mail was ceremonially oriented, of course there was substantial mail in the contexts you mention which could offer some protection. Of course whenever firearms came into the equation that was pretty much all bets off. Thanks for the correction.

[LinusLinothorax]

Great pics estcrh. This is what i would like to see here in this thread

[eftihis]

I bought these 2 mail shirts described as "PROBABLY OTTOMAN 18TH/19TH CENTURY, LATER ADAPTED FOR USE IN NORTH AFRICA", "....formed of alternating rows of welded and riveted rings of circular-section wire, with a centrally-divided neck-opening, a pair of short sleeves and a short skirt centrally divided at both its front and rear, the upper edge of the neck-opening extended upwards during working life with a strip of mail of of alternating rows of welded and riveted..."
I see they have a leather covered neck area as shown in the photo of the turban wearing horsemen.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by eftihis

I bought these 2 mail shirts described as "PROBABLY OTTOMAN 18TH/19TH CENTURY, LATER ADAPTED FOR USE IN NORTH AFRICA", "...

Nice find, they look to be in good condition do you have a weight and length for them, can you post some close up images of the links, that would be the only way to determine who actually made them.

[eftihis]

Ι dont have the weight handy,i have some hopefully better pghotos, if they are not sufficient, i will make new ones

[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.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by eftihis

Ι dont have the weight handy,i have some hopefully better pghotos, if they are not sufficient, i will make new ones

If you can get a clear image from the area below the neck that would be good, necks were sometimes added at a later date and the mail is not the same type as the body. A clear image as close as you can get would be needed, mail is deceptively hard to photograph and a clear view of the rivet area is helpful.

The common types of mail in a hauberk with that type of collar would be Indian and Ottoman, but recently European hauberks has been found with the same type of collar, they were exported to the Middle East and India etc. Auction houses are usually not knowledgable enough to know what mail is from what culture. Recently a riveted mail hauberk that came from India was sold by a very knowledgable dealer, it had the same type of collar, when examined it turned out to be a very old European hauberk with a very rare type of mail from around the 1400s.

Indian mail is usually quite identifiable as is Ottoman mail when you know what to look for, European mail as well, there are differences in manufacture that can usually be detected but the images must be good enough to see the details of the individual links.

The inside of the links are important as well, Indian and Ottoman mail have round rivets which were peened on the inside and outside of the link. European mail made after a certain time period used a rivet that was wedge shaped so the rivet looked round in the front of the link but at the back of the link the rivet was rectangle shaped.

I made the example below of clearly photographed mail. On the left is mail from an Indian riveted mail hauberk from around 1700, on the right is mail from an Ottoman mail and plate cuirass (krug) from around 1500. Both types are made from alternating rows of solid links and riveted links. The differences are quite clear, the Indian mail has solid links that are very well shaped with straight sides, the Ottoman mail has solid links that are more flat and they have a hexagon shape. Anyone with knowledge of riveted mail types would have no problem identifying these.

The last image is of newly made reproduction European wedge riveted mail. Notice that it has no solid links, these were eliminated from European riveted mail around the1400s. The front of the link looks round but as you can see, the back side has a rectangular shape, on antique European mail the back side of the links are often so worn they look completely smooth with no sign of the rivet showing.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

By the time of the Mahdist period and the subsequent campaigns ending with Omdurman, there were indeed cavalry for the Egyptian Khedive he called his 'iron men'. Surprisingly, much of the mail worn by these warriors was actually produced in Birmingham, England. In time it was realized that this mail, when hit by bullets became shrapnel itself and maximized wounds.

It is very hard to pin down exact dates as to when specific armor types were used in Khedival Egypt, there are a few images, but I do not know of any photographs showing Khedive soldiers wearing armor.

At some point in time certain mounted soldiers of the Khedives forces switched to French made, heavy steel helmets and cuirasses, they appear to have been worn between the mid to late 1800s. Since Khedival Egypt was still nominally Ottoman this armor could be called the last Ottoman armor.