1800-year-old chain armor reconstructed using video game tech
The new approach reveals how flexible armor was used in antiquity—and how “barbarians” innovated without the Romans.
About 200 A.D., a high-ranking Germanic warrior was slain in battle somewhere in modern-day Denmark. When the battle was over, his killers stripped off his precious coat of mail armor, painstakingly made by hand from nearly 20,000 tiny iron rings. Then they threw it in a bog as a sacrifice to their gods in exchange for victory in battle.
Known as the Vimose coat, the 22-pound piece of armor was discovered by archaeologists near Vimose, Denmark in the late 19th century. The armor is nearly complete, preserved by unusual low-oxygen conditions in the bog.
More than 1,800 years after it was deposited, researchers are using technology developed to power video games to figure out how the mail coat was worn,
