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Old 18th September 2015, 06:01 PM   #16
estcrh
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: USA
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Originally Posted by eftihis
Ι dont have the weight handy,i have some hopefully better pghotos, if they are not sufficient, i will make new ones
If you can get a clear image from the area below the neck that would be good, necks were sometimes added at a later date and the mail is not the same type as the body. A clear image as close as you can get would be needed, mail is deceptively hard to photograph and a clear view of the rivet area is helpful.

The common types of mail in a hauberk with that type of collar would be Indian and Ottoman, but recently European hauberks has been found with the same type of collar, they were exported to the Middle East and India etc. Auction houses are usually not knowledgable enough to know what mail is from what culture. Recently a riveted mail hauberk that came from India was sold by a very knowledgable dealer, it had the same type of collar, when examined it turned out to be a very old European hauberk with a very rare type of mail from around the 1400s.

Indian mail is usually quite identifiable as is Ottoman mail when you know what to look for, European mail as well, there are differences in manufacture that can usually be detected but the images must be good enough to see the details of the individual links.

The inside of the links are important as well, Indian and Ottoman mail have round rivets which were peened on the inside and outside of the link. European mail made after a certain time period used a rivet that was wedge shaped so the rivet looked round in the front of the link but at the back of the link the rivet was rectangle shaped.

I made the example below of clearly photographed mail. On the left is mail from an Indian riveted mail hauberk from around 1700, on the right is mail from an Ottoman mail and plate cuirass (krug) from around 1500. Both types are made from alternating rows of solid links and riveted links. The differences are quite clear, the Indian mail has solid links that are very well shaped with straight sides, the Ottoman mail has solid links that are more flat and they have a hexagon shape. Anyone with knowledge of riveted mail types would have no problem identifying these.

The last image is of newly made reproduction European wedge riveted mail. Notice that it has no solid links, these were eliminated from European riveted mail around the1400s. The front of the link looks round but as you can see, the back side has a rectangular shape, on antique European mail the back side of the links are often so worn they look completely smooth with no sign of the rivet showing.
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Last edited by estcrh; 18th September 2015 at 06:49 PM.
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