Six Armor Scales

Six Armor Scales

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These six scales come from a group of approximately three to four hundred recovered from a region of New Mexico that the Spanish explored and later colonized during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally the scales would have been riveted in an overlapping pattern, like shingles, to the outside of a leather or textile jacket (traces of fiber, apparently wool, remain under some of the rivet heads). They are important because there is otherwise very little evidence for the use of scale armor in the New World. Scale armor was largely obsolete in Europe by the time of the colonization of the American Southwest. Scale armor is an extremely ancient form of defense, with surviving fragments from the Middle East dating as early as about 1700 B.C. In Europe variations of scale armor were used from the Roman period through the end of the Middle Ages. Full-torso armor of scale went out of fashion after the mid-fourteenth century A.D., but some scale armor continued to be made and worn in certain circumstances as late as the seventeenth century. The coat of scales from which this example may have come was probably outdated by several generations when it was brought to New Mexico, possibly on a Spanish expedition of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, or perhaps as trade goods as late as the eighteenth century.

Arms and Armor

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The principal goals of the Arms and Armor Department are to collect, preserve, research, publish, and exhibit distinguished examples representing the art of the armorer, swordsmith, and gunmaker. Arms and armor have been a vital part of virtually all cultures for thousands of years, pivotal not only in conquest and defense, but also in court pageantry and ceremonial events. Throughout time the best armor and weapons have represented the highest artistic and technical capabilities of the society and period in which they were made, forming a unique aspect of both art history and material culture.