266 Chinese Clay Figures 



armor, two other theoretical considerations could be advanced. There 

 remain the Chinese and the ancient Turks of Siberia and Central Asia; 

 and it might be argued that Chinese or Siberian harness of iron plate 

 could have furnished a suitable model for the Arctic harness-maker. 

 To such a point of view, however, serious objections could be raised; 

 and here again, first of all, on purely historical grounds. The utiliza- 

 tion of iron in the making of armor, as we noticed in Chapter III, 

 does not become apparent in ancient China till as late as the first cen- 

 turies of our era, its beginnings being justly laid by the Chinese in the 

 period of the Later Han dynasty (25-220 a.d.; see p. 210), and thus it 

 appears from inward evidence. This primeval iron armor, in all 

 likelihood, was not yet a true iron plate armor, but merely a hide 

 cuirass reinforced by iron laminae; rectangular iron plates may have 

 then existed, but the matter is still problematical. Even presuming 

 that iron plate armor might have obtained during the epoch of the Later 

 Han, for which there is as yet no positive evidence, we should be forced 

 to infer that the developments of the ancient Chinese iron armor and 

 the northern bone armor, in this case, have necessarily been contem- 

 poraneous events. The tribute of the Su-shen bone armor in 262 

 a.d. is separated from the closing year of the Han period in 220 a.d. 

 only by the brief span of forty-two years; that is, the average duration 

 of a generation. If, accordingly, these two developments should have 

 run parallel to each other in point of time in two widely different culture 

 areas which otherwise had not a single point in common, the inference 

 would have to be drawn that these two developments have taken place 

 independently, and may have each been prompted by factors coming 

 from a different quarter. In the present state of our knowledge it is 

 safe to assume that bone armor in north-eastern Asia is as old as, or 

 even older than, any iron plate armor in China or Korea. 



If an outward impetus to the making of bone armor in that region 

 must be assumed, I am disposed to believe that it came from the interior 

 of Siberia. 1 In regard to ancient Siberian armor, our information is 

 exceedingly scanty. Only traces of plates of armor have been dis- 

 covered in graves on the Berel, 2 and a famous petroglyph on the Yenisei 

 depicts to us a horseman armed with lance and mail-clad (Fig. 35). 

 The long continuity of the iron age in Siberia renders it impossible at 



1 For evidence see below, p. 274. 



2 W. Radloff, Aus Sibirien, Vol. II, p. 130. Also in Siberia iron armor may 

 have formed the exception, while hide, as the cheaper material, always maintained 

 its place. Marco Polo (ed. of Yule and Cordier, Vol. I, p. 260) says concerning 

 the Tartar (that is, Mongol) customs of war, "On their backs they wear armor of 

 cuirbouly [boiled leather], prepared from buffalo and other hides, which is very 

 strong." 



