Mail armour (chainmail)
Cota de malla
- Date
- c. 300 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Ciumești, Satu Mare, Romania
- Credited to
- Celtic peoples
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Armour made of interlinked, riveted iron rings, more flexible than scale and effective against cuts, credited to the Celts. Rome adopted it (lorica hamata) and it dominated the European warrior's kit for more than a thousand years.
The oldest surviving mail dates from the 4th-3rd centuries BC in the Carpathian basin (Horný Jatov, Slovakia, and Ciumești, Romania); its invention is credited to the Celts, but Etruscan-style mail exists from at least the 4th century BC.
What it led to
- lorica hamata and Roman, medieval and Islamic mail armours
- plate armour layered over mail
- iron wire drawing at industrial scale