328  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
probably  not  unlike  the  hide  armor  worn  by  certain  American  tribes. 
As  Laufcr  has  demonstrated,  the  art  of  warfare  in  China,  including 
cavalry  tactics,  weapons,  armor,  and  various  other  items  of  military 
equipment  underwent  radical  and  revolutionary  changes  during  the 
Han  dynasty  (B.C.  206-A.D.  220).  These  innovations  were  con- 
sciously adopted  by  the  Chinese  in  imitation  of  the  superior  methods 
and  equipment  of  their  inveterate  enemies,  the  warlike  Huns,  or 
Hiung-nu,  who  in  turn  had  derived  their  mode  of  warfare  from  the 
Iranians.  Among  the  innovations  introduced  during  the  Earlier  Haii 
dynasty  (206-23  B.C.)  was  leather  armor  reinforced  with  rows  of 
copper  scales  or  laminae,  which  in  the  Later  Han  was  replaced  by 
similar  armor  with  iron  scales.  Plate  armor,  the  subject  of  our  present 
inquiry,  seems  to  have  developed  from  these  earlier  types,  the  assumj^- 
tion  being  that  gradual  changes  in  shape  and  manner  of  attachment 
of  the  iron  scales  resulted  finally  in  rectangular  plates,  which  were 
lashed  together  in  rows.  Such  armor  represented  an  advance  over 
earlier  types  in  that  it  was  not  only  light  and  flexible  but  strong 
enough  to  be  worn  alone,  thus  making  it  possible  to  dispense  with 
the  heavy  and  cumbersome  foundation  garment  of  stiff  hide  (Laufer, 
1914,  pp.  211-214). 
Laufer  shows  that  plate  armor  was  known  in  ancient  Egypt,  and 
also  in  Assyria  during  the  reign  of  King  Sargon  (B.C.  722-705).  In 
later  times  it  was  in  general  use  among  the  Scythians,  Mongols, 
Tibetans,  and  other  tribes  of  Avestern,  central,  and  eastern  Asia. 
Recent  evidence  indicates  an  extension  of  this  essentially  Asiatic 
form  of  armor  even  to  Scandinavia.  This  is  shown  by  the  discovery 
in  Gotland  of  a  suit  of  iron  plate  mail  enclosing  the  skeleton  of  a 
warrior  who  fell  at  the  battle  of  Visby  in  1361  and  of  similar  plates 
from  a  tenth  century  site  in  Sweden  (Thordeman,  1933,  pp.  117-150). 
Thordeman,  who  has  given  an  excellent  summary  of  the  technical  and 
historical  aspects  of  the  problems  connected  with  Asiatic  splint  (plate) 
armor,  concludes  that  it  had  more  than  a  sporadic  distribution  in  the 
Baltic  region  in  the  tenth  to  the  fourteenth  centuries. 
Plate  armor  reached  its  highest  development  in  Japan  and  it  was 
here  that  both  Ratzel  and  Hough  sought  the  origin  of  the  similar 
armor  of  the  Eskimos  and  Chukchee.  From  a  purely  comparative 
point  of  view,  such  a  theory  seemed  entirely  plausible,  for  as  Hough 
pointed  out,  the  form  of  the  plates,  their  arrangements,  and  the  method 
of  lashing  were  identical  in  the  two  areas.  Laufer  (1914,  pp.  262, 
264,  265)  has  shown,  however,  that  in  view  of  certain  historical 
considerations,  the  theory  of  a  Japanese  origin  is  untenable,  as  will 
appear  from  the  following  illuminating  passage : 
