Chain mail is a form of protective armor woven from metal rings and used as protection against edged weapons. The process of creating chain mail required a number of operations. Usually more than twenty thousand rings of more than six hundred meters of wire were used. Weaving began with the collar and ended with the hem; the back and chest parts were reinforced with stronger rings. Usually the weight of chain mail was 9 or 10 kilograms. The classical principle of chain mail weaving was the following: four rings were connected by the fifth — this resulted in seamless weaving and chain mail was easily repaired after being damaged.

The permanent exhibition the State Museum-Reserve “Kulikovo Field” includes a part of the chain mail armor of the 14th century in the form of a chain of nine sealed and interconnected rings. The rings are deformed; their diameter varies from 1.27 to 1.32 cm. The wire, which was used to assemble the rings, has traces of drawing. In places of soldering or welding, the rings are thicker.

The metal of the rings was studied in the X-ray spectral laboratory of the Department of Geochemistry, Faculty of Geology, Moscow State University using the method of non-destructive X-ray fluorescence energy dispersive analysis. Studies have shown that the rings are made of double brass (copper-zinc alloy) with a medium content of zinc.

The find was discovered in 2002 in excavations conducted by the military-historical detachment of the Upper Don archaeological expedition of the State Historical Museum and the State Museum-Reserve “Kulikovo Field” on the watershed of the Verkhodub and Orzhevik ravines. Presumably, it was there that the main part of the battle took place.

It is known that during the Battle of Kulikovo there were two types of mail armor. Those were chain mail and a jazerant — the type of armor, where chain mail was sewn into a quilted coat. In our case, a non-ferrous metal trim indicates that we have a fragment of a separate armor — chain mail.

Name: Chain mail rings
Date of creation: XIV century
State catalog number: 6687675
Technique: non-ferrous metal, casting
Dimensions: 4,5×1,27×0,1 cm

The permanent exhibition “Relics from the Battle of Kulikovo” presents a fragment of an iron trapezoid plate of armor of the 12th–14th centuries with rounded lower corners. The body of the plate has six rounded holes with the diameter of 0.4–0.6 cm. Possibly, the seventh hole was located in the lower right corner. The plate is 0.15–0.2 cm thick.

The plate was discovered during a joint archaeological expedition of the State Historical Museum and the State Museum-Reserve “Kulikovo Field”, to the south of the Monastyrshchino village, on the watershed of the Rybiy Verkh ravine and the Smolka River in 2000.

This plate could be part of a lamellar armor, in which the plates were fastened to each other with leather straps, thereby forming a flexible and reliable armor protection of the warrior’s body. Such plates, as a rule, were located in the lower part of the armor or made up lamellar skirts that were attached to the body.

The closest analogues of this form of armored plates are found among Novgorod artifacts of the 13th–14th centuries, the Old Russian weapons workshop of the 13th century in the city of Gomel, and excavations of the Lower Castle of Vilnius. This type of protective armor was used from the 13th to the first half of the 15th century.

At the time of the Battle of Kulikovo, protective weapons were an integral part of a warrior’s equipment. Moreover, from the second half of the 14th century onwards, the weight of body armor increased throughout Eurasia.

The find is an armor of the “brigandine” type. This is a garment lined in the inside with small-plate armor sewn or riveted to the fabric. This type of armor originated in Western Europe and was widely used both in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the countries of the Muslim world. Experts claim it appeared in the last third of the 14th century, and it went out of use in the second half of the 16th century. Perhaps it was this type of armor that the Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy was using during the battle — “The Tale of Mamai’s Defeat” mentioned that the Prince was “all beaten and sore, but on his body he found mortal wounds nowhere.”

Name: Plate (armor)