274 Chinese Clay Figures 



of hinges, and sewed to a foundation of linen or leather — evidently 

 belongs to this category. 



The most valuable contribution to the question is presented by a 

 number of single bone plates of rectangular shapes, found in barrows 

 about Popovka on the Sula in southern Russia. Five of such plates 

 are reproduced by E. H. Minns. 1 As these have perforations (one, 

 two, or three) only at the top and base, we must suppose that they were 

 sewed on to a foundation of cloth or leather; they could not have been 

 lashed together freely without such a background, as in the Chukchi and 

 Eskimo plate armors discussed above. 2 Those with pointed top and a 

 single perforation, having the one side curved and the other straight, 

 formed the ends of a plate-row. This find attests the fact that bone 

 plate armor anciently existed in the western part of the Old World 

 among Scythian tribes ; and this case shows that in regard to Northeast- 

 Asiatic and American bone plate armor we need not resort to the theory 

 of explaining it as an imitation of iron in bone. If imitation it is, it 

 may have been Scythian (or Siberian) bone armor (a single piece or 

 several), which by trade found its way to north-eastern Asia. In the 

 territory of the Scythians we find plate armor not only of bone and horn, 

 but also of bronze and iron; and it seems to me that the adoption, on 

 the part of the Scythians, of the Iranian tactics of cataphracti (p. 220) 

 gave the impetus to the introduction among them of this type of armor. 

 The rock-carving of the mounted lancer on the Yenisei (Fig. 35) demon- 

 strates that plate armor, presumably of iron, had penetrated into Siberia 

 during the iron age. I suspect the institution of cataphracti of being 

 largely responsible for the wide dissemination of this type of armor; it 

 was peculiarly adapted to fighting on horseback, and the Iranian mode 

 of tactics, as we saw in Chapter III, expanded into the Roman Empire, 

 and was adopted by the Huns, to be continued by the Turks (T'u-kue) 

 under the T'ang dynasty. When tactics and cavalry organization 

 spread over the boundaries of Iran, the armature of the cavaliers was 

 necessarily bound to migrate along the same path. 



The fresco paintings discovered in Turkistan furnish many valuable 

 contributions to the history of body armor, and particularly of plate 

 armor. A. Stein 3 was the first to correctly recognize this type of armor 

 in a Buddhist statue excavated by him at Dandan-Uiliq. The figure, 

 standing over the body of a prostrate foe, is clothed with a coat of mail 

 reaching below the knees and elaborately decorated. "The gay colors 



1 Scythians and Greeks, p. 188 (Cambridge, 191 3). 



2 In these, perforations likewise run along the long or vertical sides of the plates. 



3 Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan, p. 272 (London, 1904); and Ancient Khotan, 

 Vol I, p. 252, Vol. II, Plate II (Oxford, 1907). 



