We are researchers who have been studying ancient chain mail armor with the help of virtual reality—Ask us anything!

How do you end up in such a specific area of research?

For me (Martijn), I was already an archaeologist, but specialized in Mexican archaeology. At the time I was living in Mexico City. During a long night of talking with friends the subject of mail armour popped up. I wanted to know more about it. After reading all I could I started with research in that area. Some years later and I now will have an PhD related to the subject of mail armour.

Hi! Thanks for the question. Well, Mariia and I (Aleksei) are fond of historical costumes and digital technologies. Martijn study ancient mail armour. So, we decided to bring that together. All in all, mail armour is one of the most interesting objects we ever reconstructed.

Aleksei Moskvin

As someone who's been making mail for almost 20 years, I never thought I'd see this headline! I've made everything from rings to haubarks to 'real' riveted mail. One question I'd like to ask, have you ever come across any particular specimens of specific note, a sort of 'ulfberht' of the armor world if you will? What is the most interesting piece of mail you've studied? Also I found it funny reading the comment of which is the best depiction on-screen of mail. There are literally hundreds of examples, but one of the very few you'll find is in 'Kingdom of Heaven'. One of the only times I've seen a character properly maintaining their mail on-screen by rubbing it with olive oil! Thanks for doing this AMA!

Thank you for your questions.

Among the Late Medieval mail shirts there are maker's marks, as you will probably well know. This is the closest we get to something similar to the example of the Ulfberht swords. For the prior period there is nothing of that sort.

The most interesting mail coat has been that from Vimose. What a dream to examine!

Yes loved watching that movie, if only for the armour.

Martijn

Thanks for the question and I appreciate your kind words! Out of the ten specimens of mail we reconstructed digitally in the study, the Vimose coat is special to me.

You can find a couple of close-ups at https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1296207420301758-mmc1.pdf

Aleksei Moskvin

What did you learn from this method that you wouldn’t have been able to discover by making a replica?

Hi! Thanks for the question. The novelty of our exploration lies in using the reconstructions and computer analysis to study the garments in virtual reality. The results allowed us to answer a number of basic questions which are crucial for understanding mail armour of the Iron Age. What are the characteristic values of the physical and mechanical properties of mail, such as stretchability, stiffness and thickness? Did these properties change over time? How were comfort and protection balanced in mail garments given the properties of the mail fabrics? Whether mail armour of the Roman Iron Age allowed and required a thick under-armour garment to be worn underneath it. If so, what were the construction and features of the under-armour garments? How does the belt redistribute the weight of mail armour between the shoulders and waist? Whether the costume allowed Germanic warriors of 2nd-4th century AD to fight with different types of weapons and play different roles on a battleground as infantrymen and horsemen? The method is unique in that it is able to retrieve information on the features of mail otherwise unknown.

There are indeed some questions that are yet to be answered. By using computer simulations, we are going to model how melee weapons and projectiles hit the mail armour and how the mail fabric reacts. The results would allow us to make assumptions on protective properties of mail armour, effectiveness of weapons, possible injures caused by them and, finally, on battle tactics. What is even more important is that the simulations would help us obtain new data on the protection mechanism of mail garments.

Aleksei Moskvin

Making a physical replica is a very valid method to learn about mail armour. The problem is that nobody so far has been able to make a replica that is close to the real thing.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you face in your research? And what has the most surprising finds you've uncovered? Thanks!

Biggest obstacle is getting good data. Many of the archaeological specimens are in a corroded and fragmented condition.

Most surprising thing may be that the design of a mail coat in antiquity followed the exact same one as that of civilian textile clothing. There is a nice link between clothing and mail armour.

Hi! Thanks for the question. In my opinion, the biggest obstacle we faced is simulating some 20000 metal rings. The accuracy of computer simulations affects the accuracy of the reconstruction. The special tweaks we used are described in our article ‘Digital replication and reconstruction of mail armour’, which is available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207420301758

Aleksei Moskvin

What would you most like to tell us that no one ever asks about?

Good question. You know what, being an archaeologist I have the luxury that many people are interested in your work.

This isn't really an answer lol

I'll will give you this one instead then: that mail armour is not just one thing. Depending upon the characteristics of the rings tit can be heavy or light, can stretch a lot or be pretty stiff. Our research makes it clear that it is impossible to talk in a generic sense about mail armour when it comes to its characteristics. Moreover we see that these also change over time. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620742030515X

Martijn

How are you planning to archive your data to maximize future accessibility?

Hi! Thanks for the question. The articles and the data are available at Academia.edu, ResearchGate.net, Dimensions.ai, KUDOS, Publons, ScienceDirect. Some links follows.

https://independent.academia.edu/AlekseiMoskvin

https://vu-nl.academia.edu/MartijnAWijnhoven

https://independent.academia.edu/MariiaMoskvina

Aleksei Moskvin

What are some unique opportunities that using VR has presented?

Archaeological artefacts should always be treated with respect and care. This means that you usually will not do tests on it that present a danger to the artefact. In VR we can test all we want without doing any damage whatsoever. This is a big advantage. Also the costs involved are relatively low. The alternative of a VR reconstruction is an actual reconstruction. This usually costs a lot more. The last big advantage is that new insights can be implemented into the digital reconstruction immediately. This is not the case in physical reconstructions.

Martijn A. Wijnhoven

Answering questions. Here's what I mean. We know how the garments looked like. It is known how the rings connected within the pattern. We know that the rows of rings run horizontally in mail armour. We know that the sizes of rings are varying from one mail garment to another. Et cetera.

But it is rather difficult to explain why. The digital reconstructions and new methods, presented in the study, help researchers answer those “why” questions. What lies beyond the visual images can be discovered and added to the body of knowledge. In this study we were lucky enough to answer a couple of such questions.

Aleksei Moskvin

What weapons of the time would the armor protect against?

What weapons proved effective on the armor?

Martijn:

This is something that we still want to investigate through VR. We do have a lot of information from historical times about the protection that mail offers; and there are also many people that make recreations such as reenactors.

We know that mail protects well against slashes, but less well against blunt force or against pointy objects. The latter two can be reduced by using a padded undergarment that will absorb some of a blow, or provide extra depth against pointy objects.

Thanks so much for doing this AMA! The technology is fascinating. What do you think the next great application for this tech will be in archaeology?

Thanks for the interesting question. My answer is twofold: One, having a good ‘back-up’ of the actual artefacts that are available to all humanity. And second being able to do digital tests that you cannot do on the actual artefacts, providing new insights into the past.

Martijn A. Wijnhoven

Did mail predate the ability to draw wire, that is to say, was armor ever produced with individually hammered rings?

Martijn:

Good question. In fact part of my upcoming book will be exactly on that (sorry for the shameless plug).

Wiredrawing predates mail armour. However the evidence is mostly for non-ferrous metals. There has been a lot of debate on wire making for mail, especially since iron is much harder to draw than for example gold or silver.

Metallographic analysis demonstrates that wire in mail armour is already being drawn in the Iron Age. However this is not the only technique. We also see wire made by pulling strips of metal through a finishing die. And yes, sometimes we even find hammered wire (although the only place that comes to mind is India in which this has been found).

Which is your favorite armor from a specific culture?

Martijn:

That one is easy. Mail armour is by far my favourite. Culture-wise I tend to go towards the La Tene (Celts), Romans, or Nothern Europe in the Roman Iron Age.

I also have a soft spot for scale armour.

Where does the funding for this project come from?

Hi! Thank you for the question. The project receives no financial support so far. The authors just invest their skills, time and effort.

Nevertheless, the three articles, which are listed below, are available to a large audience through Gold Open Access. We would like to thank VU University Amsterdam, which kindly approved the payments of the article processing charges under the terms of the agreement on open access policy between Netherlandish institutions and Elsevier.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207420301758

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620742030515X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207421000546

Aleksei Moskvin

Can you make your 3D models public domain for use by others, like game makers?

Hi! Thanks for the question. Yes, making the 3D models, images, videos, etc. public domain is possible. However, our 3D models of mail are driven by the rigid body simulation that makes thousands of rings move. So, a couple of years is required for game engines and PCs to get powerful enough to handle the intense real-time computing.

Aleksei Moskvin

Hi! This is such a fascinating niche! Based on your research, are there any examples or ways armor is commonly depicted in pop culture, movies, games, etc. that is actually totally off?

There are simply too many examples to mention :) to be perfectly honest.

You could, you know, maybe mention one or two....

In many older series it isn't even mail we see, just knitted jumpers made to look like mail.

The last decades this has changed and we now see almost exclusively butted mail armour on screen. This looks like the real deal to most, but would not be of much help in actual combat. Therefore mail was usually made from riveted rings (piece of wire with overlapping ends which had been riveted shut) and from solid rings (punched from sheet metal much like a washer or welded shut).

Mail made from solid and riveted rings is not often seen on screen. The very few exceptions that do make mostly use of mail fabricated nowadays in India.

Martijn

Do you see these methods becoming standard practice in archaeology?

I hope so. It is a way to make archaeology available to anyone wherever on the planet. Moreover, it can help to safeguard archaeological data (much like plaster casts in the past when sometimes the original has become lost).

What we mainly try with our research is to demonstrate that digital reconstructions can be more than that. You can use the digital environment also to test ancient artefacts. This is much like experimental archaeology, but the scale, the fastness and the low costs involved give the digital variant a lot of potential.

Is there real value to society to be gained by studying specific ancient armor types or is it mostly just stuff that’s fun to know for people who are into that stuff?

Martijn:

Nice! This touches upon the question if there is true value to be gained by archaeology/history, since this is all in the past. I feel that a society without a perception of the past is like a person without memory.

So yes, there is much to be gained. Also consider that violence and armed conflict has been central to history and the course it has taken. Understanding the past better is a powerful means to understand the present.

Hi! What do you guys think of the sports of HEMA/Buhurt? Has it had much of an impact on your study? Has it highlighted things that you wouldn't have considered before? Thanks!

Hi, I have a lot of respect for the sports and have been pondering about joining such a sport. So far it hasn't had an impact on our research, since we have not started with the part of the study that considers the impact of weapons on the armour.

Best,

Martijn

Your work sounds fascinating. Is there one big "dream discovery" or piece of data that you're secretly always hoping to find?

In our research we reconstructed the coat of mail from Vimose dating to AD 150-220. This is one of the best (if not the best) preserved mail coats from such an age.

It was not so much a dream discovery, but such a pleasure to be granted access to this artefact. It was a dream to be able to examine it. It is a memory that I will treasure forever.

Martijn A. Wijnhoven

Thanks for the question and I appreciate your kind words! Personally, I (Aleksei) think that any new data on archaeological garments that can be added to the body of knowledge is important. Sometimes, small details can have a huge meaning and can provide researchers with unique insights.

Aleksei Moskvin

1. It is my understanding that a lot of historical mail armor has different densities of mail across different parts of the same armor, is this something you can model or is each ring/connection the same across the whole model?
2. Do you model the physical characteristics of the metal and joints to make simulations of impacts on the armor possible to see how it would react to different types of attack?
3. Different types of mail can be built in quite different ways with different weaves or joining methods, are you currently able to simulate a range of these techniques or is it based on a single type of construction?
4. what do you think this simulation can offer that making a real replica of the armor could not achieve?

Hi! Thanks for the questions.

1. We can model mail garments that have different densities across different parts.
2. We plan to test the protective properties of mail. By using computer simulations, we are going to model how melee weapons and projectiles hit the mail armour and how the mail fabric reacts. The results would allow us to make assumptions on protective properties of mail armour, effectiveness of weapons, possible injures caused by them and, finally, on battle tactics. What is even more important is that the simulations would help us obtain new data on the protection mechanism of mail garments. You are right, the physical characteristics of the metal and joints should be modelled in the software alongside with other parameters of mail and projectiles/weapons that hit the armour.
3. The grand majority of mail is woven in a 4-in-1 pattern, which features in our study. Nonetheless other weaving patterns do exist. Our method can be applied to reconstruct mail woven in different patterns.
4. By using computer simulations one can model dozens of specimens of mail and perform hundreds of tests within a couple of hours.

So far we have wrote three articles on the matter, which are available at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207420301758

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620742030515X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207421000546

Feel free to contact me with any furher questions.

Aleksei Moskvin

Does VR also help you understand how movement inside the chain mail armor was restricted, i.e. have you found out movements or gestures that could or couldn't be done?

Martijn:

Absolutely. There has been discussion if in the Roman period and Iron Age mail was worn together with a padded garment or not. Such a garment makes the armour more comfortable to wear, but also protects against blunt force trauma. In our research we were able to demonstrate that there was more than enough room inside the reconstructed armour to move around without obstruction, also including a padded garment. We also looked into the interplay of different items of clothing. For this we reconstructed also a tunic and trousers (from Thorsberg), shoes, and a belt.

Hi! Thanks for the question. This is described in our article ‘The equipment of a Germanic warrior from the 2nd–4th century AD: Digital reconstructions as a research tool for the behaviour of archaeological costumes’, which is available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207421000546

In two words, the military costume we reconstructed is highly versatile, meaning that it can be used with different types of weapons and in different tactical roles on the battlefield.

Aleksei Moskvin

What have you discovered that was most different from what you expected to find?

That mail is not just one thing and can be highly versatile depending upon the characteristics the rings are given. And that these characteristics change through time.

What is your theory about the heat-affected area surrounding the rivets? The structure of the steel surrounding the rivets is different than that of the rest of the ring, however, a heated rivet or a pair of heated tongs would not transfer enough heat to actually change the properties of the steel.

Some people have theorized that we might be looking at a spot-weld in the style of a concentrated candle-flame, blown hard on through a small tube to basically cause a narrow blowtorch. This could have worked, but there is nothing in historical artwork suggesting this was actually used. Most, if not all depictions of mail-making display the armourer with either a pair of tongs or tongs and a hammer, and clamping the rivet shut is the method that has survived until today.

So, why is the area surrounding the rivet in extant mail shirts carbourized?

Good question, to which I have to give you the unsatisfactory answer that I do not know. This would make a nice subject for a study though.

Best,

Martijn

What alloying elements are present in the mail you have analyzed? Can you speak to the different geographic areas and the alloying elements you have researched? Presence of Cr, Mo, Mn, V, Ni? How much C and then how much funk from S and P?

Most of the analysised mail rings result to be almost pure iron with only small amounts of other elements (which is indeed useful for drawing iron wire). The most promising data actually come from the analysis of the slag inclusions in the iron. These can demonstrate the origin of the iron ore. Unfortunately this type of analysis has not been done much up to present.

Is studying chain mail armor in VR the best way to enter geek Valhalla?

Thank you for making me laugh. The answer is YES!

Martijn

So most people with a passing amateur knowledge of mail think "mail was pants against bodkin arrows, so we invented plate which (at its best in eg high quality breast plates) stopped them"

Is this fair on mail?

Good question. The short answer is:

No that isn't fair on mail and a much too simplified and lineair way of thinking about change in warfare.

Best,

Martijn

Did we go straight from chainmail to kevlar body armor? What were some of the armor types in-between what was used back then and what is used now?

Mail is an Iron Age technology that was invented around 300 BC. There are many other types of armour (scale, plate, segmented, lamellar) that co-existed. Mail was abandoned pretty late though. Around the 17th century in Europe and much later in other parts of the world.

Martijn A. Wijnhoven

Martijn, is chain mail actually effective and is it not too much of a burden to wear over the course of an entire day when you’re also supposed to be fighting?

I understand that it’s going to be better to have it than not to have it if you have to engage in actual battle, I’m thinking the weight of it might become uncomfortable?

Also: are there certain weapons that it is more likely to stop, are there weapons against which it is ineffective to use it and how does one maintain a suit of armor like that? Do you clean it, do you not clean it?

Hi there,

I get asked this a lot. The answer is that mail armour was deemed effective enough by people to be worn into combat during a period that lasted about two thousands years. Sure, it can be cumbersome, but it must have enough advantages to survive such a long time.

Best,

Martijn

Who funds this kind of research, and why?

Martijn:

This particular research has been done without any funds whatsoever, but just hard work.

Hi! Thank you for the question. The project receives no financial support. The authors just invest their skills, time and effort.

Nevertheless, the three articles, which are listed below, are available to a large audience through Gold Open Access. We would like to thank VU University Amsterdam, which kindly approved the payments of the article processing charges under the terms of the agreement on open access policy between Dutch institutions and Elsevier.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207420301758

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620742030515X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207421000546

Aleksei Moskvin

" The technique, meanwhile, could feed back into video games or movie special effects, allowing designers to realistically depict armor on screens big and small as video game platforms get powerful enough to handle the intense computing required "

uuhm, zrbush (3d Programm) introduced live cloth simulation with one of their latest releases and i think they even have an example chain mail built in which is exactly the pattern of the one in the national geographic video.
Im not sure but i think you can even have live, simplified geometry based simulation in video games already. Or am I missing an important aspect?

Hi! Good question.

I agree, ZBrush is really great. One can use it or other software programs (3dsMax, Maya, Blender, etc.) to model the rings.

Then the rings should be simulated. And that's where the issue lies. In video games the cloth simulation is utilized for draping mail armour. However, the cloth simulation cannot accurately reproduce the movement of the rings within the pattern because of some fundamental differences between textile materials and mail fabric. (for further details see our article “Digital replication and reconstruction of mail armour” at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207420301758)

That is why we used the rigid body simulation to make thousands of rings move under the influence of gravity. We used Unreal Engine 4, which utilizes GPU (graphics processing unit) computing resources in addition to CPU (central processing unit). The use of GPU significantly improves performance of the rigid body simulation. However, even with the latest version of UE4 and nVidia GeForce GTX 1080ti, we still need a couple of hours to have the Vimose coat (19,123 rings) simulated. I know that RTX 20 series and RTX 30 series are more powerful, but real-time simulation (30 frames per second) is not really achievable so far.

Aleksei Moskvin

What is the oldest piece of extant mail know to science? Do we have any roman examples?

That would be the one from Horný Jatov in Slovakia. Yes we have a lot of Roman examples. The one we recreated digitally is not Roman, but comes from the Roman period.

Martijn

Wouldnt it just make more sense and be more accurate to actually make it the way they did back then?

Hi! Thank you for the question. I see your point. The aim of ancient artisans was to make armour. The aim of contemporary researchers is to study it. No ancient tools and techniques can be used to access, for example, the physical and mechanical properties of mail:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620742030515X

Aleksei Moskvin

How would a virtual reconstruction be any better than a replica made of real metal and materials?

Are you afraid you might miss some variables using a system like this? (like the effect of blood and sweat on the mail, or imperfections in the metal, or the rate that certain links have more defects than others)

Well mostly I want to ask how can a virtual model have properties even close to the real thing?

Thank you for your question. The problem is that the real thing is in a museum and should be treated with care. We cannot go around and test the real thing, so we have to come to a solution. There are two possibilities: make a physical replica or make a digital one.

The first is in the realm of experimental archaeology and that of modern mail makers. Experimental archaeology has a long tradition, but the use of virtual reality as a research tool has so far had very little attention. In our research we show how such an approach can be done. We wanted to demonstrate that virtual reality can be more than just a manner to visualize an ancient artefact, but can also be a means as to study its characteristics.

We choose a mail coat for showing the application of this technique because it is one of the most complex things to recreate virtually. Our recreation is the most accurate one ever made of the Vimose coat of mail. It has replicated each of the 19,123 rings (yes that is the exact number of rings it had). We also located each ring accurately into the weave and followed the exact construction of the original artefact. Then we replicated each individual ring so its mass, volume and overall appearance per ring was exactly that of the Vimose coat. What we ended up with is a highly accurate copy of the real thing.

There are several advantages to using virtual reality as a research tool. First, is the accuracy. We can make it as accurate as the data we have available. More data means more accuracy. The nice thing is that there are very little cost involved. The only thing it cost is time. The development is the part that took us much time, but once here it takes very little time to enter other data and end up with a new coat.

This is also a big advantage. If insights alter or we get new data, it is a matter of minutes or hours to have a new virtual replica. As a mail maker (note I also make mail myself!) you cannot compete with this. This fast way of working also means that you can enter the data of many different specimens and can compare them to each other. We did this in our second article with 10 archaeological finds of mail.

The last advantage is the objectivity. Any person can recreate or check the data of what we have done. The output of our analysis can be easily represented (as seen in our articles) and accessed. If we compare this to experimental archaeology it is harder to convey the experience objectively to any reader.

Best wishes,

Martijn

Where does the funding for this project come from?

Hi! Thank you for the question. The project receives no financial support. The authors just invest their skills, time and effort.

Nevertheless, the three articles, which are listed below, are available to a large audience through Gold Open Access. We would like to thank VU University Amsterdam, which kindly approved the payments of the article processing charges under the terms of the agreement on open access policy between Netherlandish institutions and Elsevier.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207420301758

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620742030515X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207421000546

Aleksei Moskvin

[deleted]

By working very hard. And yes they are :)