The Problem of Plate Armor 265 



is, they belong to the latter part of the Fujiwara period (900-1100). 

 Before this time, padded coats and hide cuirasses were the usual means 

 of body protection; the latter sometimes assumed the form of scale 

 armor, the scales being cut out of pieces of boiled leather. 1 



The Chinese Annals of the Sui Dynasty, 2 in the interesting account 

 on Japan, state that the Japanese (Wo) make armor of varnished leather 

 (tsi p'i wet kia) and arrows of bone. At that time, which, from the 

 standpoint of Japanese development, is designated as the protohistoric 

 or semihistoric period, defensive armor cannot have played any signifi- 

 cant role in ancient Japan, as it is conspicuously absent in her two oldest 

 records, the Kojiki (composed in 712 a.d.) and the Nihongi (720 a.d.). 3 

 In the year 780 an order was issued by the government that leather ar- 

 mor should be used, because the kind hitherto worn (that is, padded 

 coats) was continually requiring repair. This order permitted, further, 

 the use of iron instead of leather, and advised that all armor should be 

 gradually changed to metal. 4 It is therefore clear that at the time, 

 when our Su-shen account of bone armor is at stake, the Japanese did 

 not possess any metal or any plate armor, and that it is even question- 

 able whether they then availed themselves of defensive armor at all. 

 We are hence prompted to the conclusion that bone plate armor, being 

 at least from six to eight hundred years older than Japanese plate armor, 

 cannot have been made as a reproduction of the latter, and that Japan 

 cannot be made responsible for it. Thus the whole theory of a con- 

 nection of American and Northeast -Asiatic plate armor with Japan 

 must naturally collapse. 



If the opinion should be correct of those who believe that American- 

 Asiatic plate armor must have been made in imitation of a form of iron 



1 Catalogue of the Loan Collection of Japanese Armor, p. 38 (New York, 1903). 

 According to W. Gowland (The Dolmens and Burial Mounds in Japan, p. 47, 

 Westminster, 1897), no bronze armor has as yet been found in the dolmens of Japan; 

 and iron armor, too, is by no means of very common occurrence. 



2 Sui shu, Ch. 81 , p. 6 b (also Pel shi, Ch. 94, p. 72). It is notable that the account 

 of Japan in the Annals of the Later Han Dynasty (Ch. 1 15, p. 5 b) makes no mention 

 of body armor, but points out only the shield and the use of offensive weapons, such 

 as spear, wooden bow, and arrows with bamboo shafts and bone heads. Arrows with 

 iron heads employed in Japan are first reported in Tsin shu (Ch. 97, p. 3). 



5 O. Nachod, Geschichte von Japan, Vol. I, p. 155 (Gotha, 1906). But shields 

 are several times mentioned as offerings. The Annals of the Later Han Dynasty, 

 as pointed out, confirm the existence of shields. The idea generally entertained that 

 Japan has had a bronze and an iron age, in my opinion, is erroneous. The bronze 

 and iron objects found in the ancient graves have simply been imported from the 

 mainland, and plainly are, in the majority of cases, of Chinese manufacture. Many 

 of these, like metal mirrors, certain helmets and others, have been recognized as such; 

 but through comparison with corresponding Chinese material, the same can be proved 

 for the rest. Ancient bronze objects are so scarce in Japan that, even granted they 

 were indigenous, the establishment of a "bronze age" would not be justified, nor is 

 there in the ancient records any positive evidence of the use of bronze. 



4 Bashford Dean, /. c, p. 27. 



