28 October 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Impressive proof of technology transfer in Antiquity times “2700 year- old a Leather Armor”

Design and construction details of the unique leather-scaled armor found in a horse rider’s tomb in northwest China indicate that it originated in the Neo-Assyrian Empire between the 6th and 8th centuries BCE, before being brought to China.

A virtually full leather scale armor was discovered in the grave of a 30-year-old male in the modern-day city of Turfan in Northwest China in 2013. This unprecedented discovery, which survived the millennia due to the area’s extremely arid climate, provided new insights into the spread of military technology during the first millennium BCE to an international team led by Patrick Wertmann of the University of Zurich’s Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies.

Researchers from the University of Zurich, the Academia Turfanica, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn, Freie Universität Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and the German Archaeological Institute were involved in the study.

Scale armors shield a fighter’s critical organs like an additional layer of the skin without impeding their movement. Small shield-shaped plates were stacked in horizontal rows and stitched to a backing to create the armors.

2700 years ago, the Neo-Assyrian fighters probably looked similar to how Mongol warriors look today at a festival. (Image: istock.com/katiekk2)

Armors were extremely valuable because of the expensive components and time-consuming production process, and wearing them was seen as an aristocratic luxury. They were seldom buried beside the owner. But when strong governments with big armies began to appear in antiquity, less expensive but still effective armors made of leather, bronze, or iron were developed for regular troops.



📣 Our WhatsApp channel is now LIVE! Stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates, just click here to follow us on WhatsApp and never miss a thing!!



Standard military equipment for horsemen

The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the armor to between 786 and 543 BCE. It was originally made of about 5,444 smaller scales and 140 larger scales, which together with leather laces and lining weighed between 4 and 5kg. The armor resembles a waistcoat that protects the front of the torso, hips, the sides and the lower back of the body. It can be put on quickly without the help of another person and fits people of different statuses.

“The armor was professionally produced in large numbers,” said Patrick Wertmann from the University of Zurich. With the increasing use of chariots in Middle Eastern warfare, a special armor for horsemen was developed from the 9th century BCE. These armors later became part of the standardized equipment of military forces of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which extended from parts of present-day Iraq to Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Egypt.

Photo: Wikipedia

Two armors, distinct units

While there is no direct parallel to the 2,700-year-old armor in the whole of Northwest China, there are some stylistic and functional similarities to a second contemporary armor of unknown origin held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the Met). It is possible that the two armors were intended as outfits for distinct units of the same army, i.e. the Yanghai armor for cavalry and the armor in the Met for infantry.

It is unclear whether the Yanghai armor belonged to a foreign soldier working for the Assyrian forces who brought it back home with him, or whether the armor was captured from someone else who had been to the region.

Wertmann in the press release: “Even though we can’t trace the exact path of the scale armor from Assyria to Northwest China, the find is one of the rare actual proofs of West-East technology transfer across the Eurasian continent during the early first millennium BCE,” he said.

The study is part of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies’ research project “Sino-Indo-Iranica rediviva – Early Eurasian migratory phrases in Chinese and their cultural consequences.” The research, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), investigates the oldest flow of tangible products between Central Asia and China using linguistic, historical, and archaeological data.

University of Zurich

Cover Photo: The ancient leather shed armor could be dated to the period between 786 and 543 BC. (Image: D.L. Xu, P. Wertmann, M. Yibulayinmu)

Related Articles

Ark of the Covenant Discovery? Biblical Ruins Unearthed in Israel May Be Key to Ancient Mystery

6 August 2025

6 August 2025

Archaeologists at Tel Shiloh Claim Structure Matches Biblical Tabernacle Where the Ark of the Covenant Was Housed In a monumental...

Neanderthals too may have Developed a System of Numerical Notation

2 June 2021

2 June 2021

People developed numbers tens of thousands of years ago, according to archeological findings. Scholars are now investigating the first comprehensive...

As a result of an operation in western Turkey, 4 skulls belonging to the Jivaro tribe of South American origin were seized

14 December 2021

14 December 2021

In the operation held in the Aliağa district of İzmir, 400 historical artifacts belonging to various periods were seized, including...

Stonehenge could be a solar calendar, according to a new study

2 March 2022

2 March 2022

A new study posits that the Stonehenge circles served as a calendar that tracks the solar year of 365.25 days,...

Archaeologists may have found Lyobaa, the Zapotec Land of the Dead

1 July 2023

1 July 2023

An archaeological team from the Lyobaa project has confirmed the existence of a vast Zapotec underground complex in their study...

Polish archaeologists discovered new petroglyphs dating back to the 3rd century in Colorado

14 December 2023

14 December 2023

Archaeologists from the Jagiellonian University, southern Poland, have made a significant discovery of ancient indigenous paintings and carvings in the...

Surprising Discovery: In Guatemala, archaeologists uncover hidden neighborhood in the ancient Maya city

28 September 2021

28 September 2021

A recent lidar analysis revealed, the region surrounding Central Tikal’s Lost World Complex, which was long thought to be a...

Remains of 14th-century Synagogue thought to be one of largest in region discovered in Poland

14 August 2023

14 August 2023

The remains of what is thought to be a sizeable 14th-century synagogue complex, including a mikvah, have been discovered during...

Medieval Islamic glass of Scottish Caerlaverock Castle reveals untold histories

23 October 2022

23 October 2022

Discovered by archaeologists at Caerlaverock Castle, eleven kilometers south of Dumfries on Scotland’s south coast, a trio of Islamic glass...

A 1,100-year-old lead amulet of Bulgarian soldiers sieges Constantinople found

31 March 2023

31 March 2023

A lead plate amulet bearing an inscription in Cyrillic dating from the times of Tsar Simeon the Great was discovered...

Tragurium Twins: A Rare Roman Archaeological Discovery in Croatia

12 March 2025

12 March 2025

Recent archaeological excavations in Croatia have unearthed a remarkable and heart-wrenching discovery: the remains of twin babies interred together in...

Farmer Found an Ice Age Cave Under His Field

30 March 2021

30 March 2021

A naturally formed cave was found near the town of Kraśnik in southeastern Poland, used by humans during the Ice...

Ukrainian Stonehenge

6 July 2021

6 July 2021

It has almost become a tradition to compare the structures surrounded by stones to the Stonehenge monument. This ancient cemetery,...

2800-year-old settlement discovered in Vadnagar, India

17 January 2024

17 January 2024

An excavation in Gujarat’s Vadnagar, about 900 km southwest of New Delhi, India, has found the remains of a settlement...

7500-year-old cursed city of Iran

17 March 2023

17 March 2023

Sialk Hills, located in the southwestern part of Kashan city in Iran, was known among the locals as a ‘cursed...