Talk:Lorica hamata

Added more info regarding lorica hamata & lorica segmenta
Added this part: "and the Roman Empire up to the 2nd century, when it was briefly replaced by lorica segmenta, but then was reintroduced in the 4th century CE."

Chainmail was used by the legionaries up to the 2nd century CE. It was briefly replaced by lorica segmenta/iron band armor in the 2nd-3rd centuries, but was reintroduced as the standard armor of the Roman empire in the 4th century. -- Intranetusa (talk) 18:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

-- Segmental armour never replaced Chainmail.In reality it always only existed next to mail and scale armours as armour possibility and likely was never used so commonly and widely as chainmail.It is especially misleading to talk about segmental armour as replacing Chainmail briefely during 3rd century since at that time it was already for a long in its decline of usage(which started during 2nd half of the 2nd century) and arheology gives us pretty clear picture that during 3rd century it was Chainmail and scale what was the most dominantly used armour forms.

Bronze Chainmail ?
Chainmail made of Bronze? It sounds strange. The earliest mentions and samples of this type of armor we have got come from iron cultures, for good reason.

Bronze lends itself well to casting and forging, but lacks the ductility of iron, and is not very useful as wire, being too stiff and prone to breaking. On the other hand, the production of chainmail, especially in large quantities, depends on the rings being mass produced from wire, rather than hand fashioned one at a time. Neither would mass-cast rings be too practical, as you would still need to link them together, which is easier with wire ones that lend themselves more easily to this kind of manipulation, before being hammered closed.

Are there any sources for bronze chainmail? --Svartalf 14:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I've never heard that Roman mail was made from anything other than iron. All modern reproductions I've ever seen (and I own a suit of lorica hamata myself) are iron or steel.  Suggest we edit this statement, as I think it's probably false.--Caliga10 12:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, galvanised steel is very easy to get hold of due to its use for fencing, so most mail made these days is going to tend to be made of it. That doesn’t necessarily mean bronze wasn’t used in the past.  To me it would perhaps make sense to cast the closed rings out of bronze, and make the wire rings out of steel.  But that’s just me.  — Chameleon 04:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Accuracy
This paragraph "Around 5AD the Lorica Hamata became less common as Lorica Segmentata was much cheaper and quicker to make - an important fact when there were so many men to arm. However some African and Asian legions are thought to have kept it till it became standard issue again in the last years of the Empire." was recently added and I think it's inaccurate. My understanding is that lorica segmentata was only in use from 0-5 AD until about 70 AD, and probably never worn by even the majority of legionaries during that time period. Other opinions?--Caliga10 11:48, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, the conventional thinking is that Lorica Segmentata was always less widespread than Lorica Hamata and probably fell out of what general use it had enjoyed in the Late Second Century / Early Third Centuray AD; the reasons for it's introduction and eventual disappearance remain matters open to debate.--M.J.Stanham 21:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The earliest dated segmentata to be found has been dated to 9 BC. Prior to that it was thought 9 AD was the earliest, from Kalkriese. It is also now thought to have possibly been in use up until the 4th C. AD. There can be no certainty about the ratio of use between hamata and segmentata as the representational record contradicts itself (major monuments show a great deal of segmentata in use, the possibly more reliable Adamklissi Metopes show none as do most if not all of the individual grave stele). But the archaeological record of actual finds you can hold in your hands shows segmentata in great use all over the Roman world, from Scotland to Syria. This is not a subject of absolute definitive knowledge, so be wary of making bold statements. - J. Bowers

J Bowers, the lorica segmenta was invented quite early, but not used in any significant number. The vast majority of lorica segmentas when it was used in mass comes from the 2nd-3rd centuries. Before and after this timeframe, chainmail was the standard issue for Roman legionaries. Most pictures of Roman legionaries depict them wearing chainmail. Trajan's column (2nd cent) is one of the few instances that depict the use of lorica segmenta. -- Intranetusa (talk) 18:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Lorica segmentata was still common used in 2nd century. Lorica hamata started been used again in the half of the 3 rd century. In 2nd it was stil Lorica segmentata (Corbridge A,B, Newstead, late model).--213.151.217.129 (talk) 17:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

3D google warehouse model
See http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=82255c2abcec20dfeab2bd7322386ffd&prevstart=0, a snapshot could also be made for this article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.189.236 (talk) 09:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

"Riveted rings"?
Someone identified only numerically, very early in this article's history, contributed a description that still sits in the opening paragraph, saying that this type of mail is made of alternating horizontal rows of two kinds of rings, one kind being "riveted."

Does anyone now participating know what's meant by that? I thought "riveted" meant fastened with a rivet -- which can't be what is meant here (since the same paragraph says the wire is only 1mm thick --"Each ring had an inside diameter of about 5 mm, and an outside diameter of about 7 mm." -- how would a Roman mailer have drilled and riveted that?) -- or perhaps, by extension, upset at the end as is done to a rivet -- which also can't be what is meant here (since that wouldn't serve to fasten a loop shut).

Did the writer mean "welded"? (This can be done as a forging technique; it doesn't require twentieth-century methods.)

Or simply "hammered shut"? (Mail made as jewelry or as meat cutter's safety gloves can be made of wire rings simply bent closed with pliers, but mail used for armor may have been made of sterner stuff, and also I don't know when pliers were invented.)

Or does the contradiction between the description and the scale of the material arise from two writers not describing the same thing? The main article on mail also talks about the links being riveted sometimes.

Does anyone please have a photograph of a sample of material so constructed? A picture would be worth a thousand words…

Crispin miller (talk) 12:41, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * No, rivited mail is certainly what is meant. There's plenty of sources on the net, such as |this and |that. Snori (talk) 20:18, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Is http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/chainmail.htm a Reliable Source?
It's a link to a random website that doesn't even cite its own sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewf9h-bg (talk • contribs) 21:32, 2 October 2020 (UTC)