Defensive Armor of the Han Period 



213 



Han were of that metal then most generally employed, — copper. And 

 a number of perforated, thin copper plates exhumed in the environment 

 of Si-ngan fu from a grave of that epoch tends to confirm this opinion. 

 These lamina?, some of which are sketched in Fig. 34, can but have 

 served the purpose of being sewed on to the surface of a cuirass. They 

 were employed for the making of a k'ai, and formed the natural continua- 



FlG. 33. 



Sketches of Helmets (from T'u shu Isi ch'ing which reproduced them from Wu pei chi), 

 representing the Tradition of the Ming Period. 



tion of the ancient scale armor kiai discussed at the end of the previous 

 chapter. The scales in the latter were cut out of leather: in the third 

 and second centuries B.C., the Han made a decided advance by gradual- 

 ly transforming these leather into copper scales; and the Posterior 

 Han, in the first centuries of our era, went a step farther in substituting 

 iron for copper. The specimens in Fig. 34 demonstrate that the copper 

 pieces leaned in their forms toward scales, though they approach to a 

 higher degree the shape of a leaf (hence the term "leaf" which we meet 

 in the Han authors) . A slow and gradual development must have been 



