Illustration by Angus McBride.īut beyond just an event with religious implications, the subsequent formation of the Kingdom of Sicily resulted in a synergistic cultural domain that was seldom seen in the rest of ‘backward’ Western Europe. Siculo-Norman knight from southern Italy. To it, the heavy silk braid, butterfly-like knot called agemaki was tied. A copper ring ( agemaki-no-kan) was riveted in the middle of the back section. These were made from hard wood, horn and sometimes ivory. The cuirass was closed with the traditional buttons ( kohaze) attached to the watagami. The straps ( watagami) were strengthened with vertical, semi-rounded plates which protected the shoulders from vertical cutting strokes. The waidate was put on first and was tied to the body with two silk cords-one at the level of the waist and the other diagonally across the chest and over the left shoulder. A three-section cuirass fully protected the back, left and front parts of the body, and only the right part (where the letter “C” is opened) was protected with a separate section called the waidate. The most distinctive feature of the o-yoroi was its cross-section, which had the form of the Latin letter “C”. As an article from Boris Petrov Bedrosov (at ) describes – In essence, the great warrior armor was reserved for the high-ranking warriors (‘ bushi‘), especially after 10th century AD, when such elite troops performed the tactical tasks of cavalrymen and mobile archers on the battlefield. The Ō-yoroi or ‘great armor’ was specifically designed for mounted archers, who often formed the elite forces of the Japanese Samurai.
High-ranking Samurai wearing ‘o-yoroi’ on the right side. The dress of these troops consisted of the tiara, or soft felt cap, embroidered tunic with sleeves, a coat of mail looking like the scales of a fish, and trousers for arms they carried light wicker shields, quivers slung below them, short spears, powerful bows with cane arrows, and short swords swinging from belts beside the right thigh.
#Armor through the ages crack#
Herodotus also described the warrior armor of these crack troops of the Achaemenid Empire – In other words, the casualties in this elite division might have been replaced as soon as possible from the best candidates from other Persian baivarabam. The so-called ‘Immortals’ or Amrtaka (in Old Persian) were the chosen baivarabam of the Persian king, and their scope of ‘immortality’ seemingly stemmed from their constant number – which was always kept at 10,000 (according to Herodotus). The decimal system was also upheld when ten such regiments were combined to form a division ( baivarabam) of 10,000 men. Then, there were others who were more privileged than most (knights and nobles, mainly), and wore even better and stronger full-body armor, which rendered them almost invincible against ‘regular’ swords and arrows.The ancient Persians almost had an obsession with the number ‘thousand’, and as such their regiments were theoretically divided into thousand men known as hazarabam ( hazara denoting thousand).
#Armor through the ages movie#
If you’ve ever watched a movie based on an ancient war (such as Gladiator, Braveheart, 300, Troy… just to name a few), then you may recall that some warriors in those times wore special armor during battle. However, armor had chinks and weak points that could be exploited by sharp weapons and concussive blows. Knights and nobles had better armor and were almost invincible against regular weapons.
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