Leather and Bone Armor - Not Just Fantasy! 

What do you mean, "stone is not organic"? I'll have you know there is plenty of good rock found on natural soil, completely free of pesticides, preservatives, and antibiotics! It's even gluten free.

Leather armor is the only dyeable armor without mods.

Lightly armored means light on your feet. SMART!

Why do thieves wear leather armour Its made out of hide.

What about Havel's armour from Dark Souls? 600 pound 3 inch thick stone armour is realistic right?

One important point with fantasy leather armour is the context within the overall universe. Unlike real life many fantasy worlds seemingly have a near endless supply of murderous beasts which seemingly _must_ be killed for safety's sake anyway, and they tend to have far tougher hides than equivalent real-life animals. In such a world armour-grade leather is plentiful especially for hunters, guards and adventurers while at the same time mining tends to be far more dangerous due to those same beasts, Balrogs, or just your usual orks'n'goblins raiding the quarry. Who _wouldn't_ try and make armour out of Smaug's scales? If your fantasy people are making leather armour out of cows or pigskin you're doing it wrong. Or playing Minecraft.

"Did people use X material found locally in abundance for weapons and armor?" Yes.

As far as evidence of historical leather armor goes, it's absolutely everywhere and it's so compelling that it's present in current usage. Leather work gear. Gloves, boots, aprons, chaps, sleeves, etc. We use leather because we know it's tough, resistant to abrasion, cuts, punctures, and flame. It's been used as armor for the bottom of our feet for centuries in shoe soles. It might not be a SUIT of armor, but it's armor.

Hey Skall i'm A Tlingit native, and I wanted to say appreciate you showing common respect and courtesy to my people! Most of our culture and history is overlooked, so it means a lot to see info about my tribe in your video

Many years ago, I saw a documentary where archeologists reconstructed a mycenaean boar tusk helmet and shot it with a bow and the bones would often shatter, but they absorbed enough energy and deviated the arrow head enough to save your life. So they played their role.

That thumbnail lol imagine being in a line of men in an army, watching the enemy marching towards you...everyone’s adrenaline is through the roof, death is right in front of you...then you turn to the guy next to you and see that look 😂

I will slay thee and wear thy bones as a grand new armor set!

But what about Italian Pasta armour?

"the way i talked back then was kind of cringy" pLEASE UPLOAD THEM i'm imagining you trying to do an impersonation of War from Dark Siders and trying to sound super edgy and cool and its hilarious in my head

The most fascinating armor in my opinion was the Aztec cotton armor that was soaked in brine to "temper" it.

I'd always assumed that arm bracers were worn much like they're worn today: for archery. Anyone with experience of a high poundage bow string slapping their inner forearm will understand why they're nice things to have.

Some units of the Mongol and Chinese empires used paper armor. And apparently it was actually pretty good.

Every time I see an old Skald clip, I always think how much weight you've lost, well done senpai, keep up the good work my dude

He'll address my wooden armor concerns any day now. He even mentioned it.

The Greeks had linen armors with several layars and glue Alexander the great apparently wore one. I saw in documentary tests of it and it was surprising how protective only linen with glue can be

"Corpse Armor" sounds like a pretty awesome name for my future death metal band XD

leather lamellar armor (from bison hides) was a common armor for byzantine cataphract horses of the 10th century. It is been described in Praecepta Militaria III.37-46

Don't show this to Lindybeige... he'll have a stroke

Interesting fact: In France, the word "cuirasse" that we also find in english (cuirass), is commonly used to talk about a piece of armor, placed on torso. In french, "cuir" means leather!

The other example that springs to mind for me, although not technically bone, is the 7th C. (CE), Benty Grange helmet from England. It had an iron frame, but was covered/constructed using horn plates. Very interesting video by the way!

1350s, Hungarian soldiers campaigning in Italy wore "farsetto di cordovano" (leather doublets - read caftan/dolman) of several layers, which Matteo Villani declared useful for defending oneself in combat. Basic tests indicate protection roughly equivalent to mail (though considerably more ablative).

Your content is always top quality! Keep up the Fantastic work!!!

Leather armor existed yes. However the reason people say its 'fake' is because many movies swap out what should be BRIGANDINE for leather with just the metal studs.

I feel like, because they deteriorate easier, whenever we find armor made of organic materials, it means there was a lot more where it came from- so if we find equal amounts of metal and leather, there must have been a lot more leather at some point

Next up: Dragon scales discovered

This is awesome! i'm writing a book, and characters in it wear leather armor. Right before i looked it up you posted this. You're either psychic or just awesome.

Why doesn't anyone mention buff coats when they talk about leather armor?

My hat is off to Skal for pondering this subject with some actual thought instead of the usual "Leather is just hollywood silliness because not enough have been found and because and because". A bit too often the history fanatics seem to lack imagination and even such a basic trait as common sense to even land on the same page of actual events. With a pretty high probability the people of old were not dimwits, and most likely they crafted armour out of most readily available materials, cheaper ones for the common folk and more elaborate for the rich. Funnily enough, the graves of the rich have been literal treasure chests of historical items, while the peasant rarely got a full suit of armour to help them on their journey through afterlife. And why would the son have buried his fathers armour with him, if he was in dire need for the garment himself? In my humble opinion, most common items that were yet too expensive to be replaced completely, were used until failing so utterly, there was little of them left, when they were eventually discarded. And even if we managed to find a metric ton of these leathery remains, would we recognize them as pieces of armour? Historical finds tell us something has existed, they do not, however, exclude anything else out of the possible realm of existence.

Dried egg yolk armor, tough, colorful, impossible to remove

You shouldn't remove your old videos. It shows how far you've come (and how much weight you've lost) as a content creator! I've been watching you for years and you've become a very good creator!

Hey buddy, I think you've got the wrong door The leather club's two blocks down

I'm so scarred by Path of Exile that i noticed the bone armour in the thumbnail is the Carnal Armour from the game. fml.

But what about Chitin Armor?

Leather and hide armours show up with decent regularity in parts of Africa. We have references in Arabic chronicles to Berber cuirasses made from the hide of the scimitar oryx, the same animal that the Ghanaians, the Almoravids, and the modern Tuareg made shields out of. According to one source they sold for the same amount as the shields, at 30 dinars a piece. As you move further south in West Africa, you encounter descriptions of leather skullcaps on Jolof and Malian infantry, and leather helmets on Malian cavalry. You also get shields made of buffalo, elephant, or hippopotamus hide, and more rarely, references to what might be cuirasses or helmets made from the same stuff.

5:50 As far as I know this type of armor existed. But it wasn´t only leather, it was a steel or bronze breastplate with leather around it. So it was more expensive than a regular breastplate and were only used from "higher soldiers". It also had more representative functions and was less effektive in defence, because a normal breastplate is designd that a spear or arrow can slip off. But the design of a muscle armor could "catch" a spear or arrow, what you normaly don´t want.

"organic armor" narrowing it down to leather and other animal parts, otherwise we would have to deal with wood, textile, stone >stone

Wearing leather "plate" on mail makes quite a bit of sense when you consider blunt force trauma to your limbs your biggest problem in combat; the best mail and gambeson stopping a blade from cutting into your arm won't do you any good if the sheer force shatters the bone...

Personally I just strap the corpses of my enemies unto my body. Sometimes they aren’t corpses when I enter, but what’s scary is when they exit battle no longer a corpse.

Hey Skall, great video as always. I am from the small Mediterranean Island of Malta, and even here we have sources for leather armour. Unfortuantely, none have survived. However, written sources describe it. Leather helmets were common, and were described as Beretta di Guardia (Guard's hat). We do not know when they started, but we know that theu were in use in the late Medieval Period up until the Great Siege of 1565. They were worn by the Mahras, local conscripts tasked as coastal look-outs for Muslim pirates.

3:15 i dunno, Skall in that video seems to have quite enough "mass" ☝️😂 good on you for losing it, great job.

The problem isn’t bone and leather armor per sa. The problem is how people conceptualize it. Some stripes of bone as part of a laminar armor makes sense. Wearing an animal skull as a helmet doesn’t.

A little thing to keep in mind with bone is that when it's fresh and alive, it's extremely easy to break, however, when exposed to air for a long time, it ages and hardens, becoming extremely tough. If we were to apply the same logic to actual bone armour, it would be pretty good at protecting the wearer.

Hey Skal, you know what I'd really like to see a pro such as you do? Whether or not is the bonemold armour from morrowind actually plausible.

3:00 Wait, That was YOU!? I still remember watching that video some several year back then and already forgot who uploaded that video.

6:47 actually this armor is from a later date, possibly 17th or 18th century; it is a ceremonial suits and it was erroneously dated sy Bashford Dean in his first book about Japanese arms and armors in the earli 1900. 7:07 Japan has many rawhide helmets, both functional and ceremonial. The most common example are rawhide jingasa, the kettle helmets of the foot soldiers, but some Kabuto were made of rawhide as well. Many 17th and 18th century armors were entirely made of rawhide plates

I love how the dragonbone armor in skyrim is surprisingly realistic and reasonable for what it is.

When it comes to leather and bone armor it's hard to say because it's just that and rots away . Sad probably some really cool designs

Your most informative video I've seen yet. Thank you. I loved what you say about "unless you have proof, it's just speculation." It very much needs to be said.

2:50 wow a man who can admit and repair his less than stellar moments. Slightly more respect from me to you bro. True strength.

im from egypt i didn't actually knows ancient egyptian used leather armor , thanks for info

Finally realistic leather armor. Plus leather armor is more plausible in fantasy cause you got monsters so you can make troll,ogre and minotaur hide/leather/skin lamellar armor this are just some examples.

Every time I watch your show, I want to play Age of Empires.

This along with all the methods we have to strengthen metal really makes me consider how much nicer post apocalypse armor would often be that is depicted with raiders and such. Assuming this craftsman and smithing knowledge is maintained there could be some really cool wood, leather, Kevlar, and metal armors that could be made that would completely beat even historically accurate full plate armor.

My favorite armor was worn by Alexander the greats. This armor was made of a layered flax fabric. It was light weight and very very strong (a replication of it held up to and English long bow at close) range)

I'm surprised there wasn't a side note upon mentioning Tlingit about their wooden slat armour that they would put OVER the already hardened leather armour. They also wore carved wooden helmets and neck guards. The armour of the Haida people is of the same make and there was reports from Russian explorers that arrows wouldn't penetrate the armour and neither would bullets unless within 20ft

Didnt watched the video yet but did you mention chinese paper armour? If not, please make a small funfact video, imho its cool as heck.

Qin terracotta army wore lacquered rawhide lamellar armor. Rawhide is stronger, tougher, and cheaper than leather. The process of tanning rawhide to make leather is expensive, time consuming, and makes the hide much weaker in the effort to make it softer.

I built a viking lamellar armor out of wood years ago. It was really protective against blunt weapons used in living history. Another + was the light weight it had.

Samurai armor consists of mainly lacquered boiled leather with bits of iron/steel plates and chain mail woven in. I don't know why some think there wasn't much leather armor back in the day.

“That still sounds pretty metal.” HaHa! Like just for that.

As a sport fencer using eastern techniques I look to strike my foes hands and fingers even when armored “Stop him at the wrist” is the adage

Here's my argument for leather, there is leather items from WW2 that is totally destroyed from time,humidity, the elements, and can be rare today to find, that wasnt even 100 years ago and we mass produced these leather items like gloves hats jackets enmasse. The fact that thousands of years later we can still find pieces of leather armor would suggest that they were very widespread used. That's just my logical theory.

You might have forgotten, the Zulu tribes in Africa wore some forms of basic leather armor such as light head protection, arm guards, shin guards, cuirasses and leg and thigh protection and used leather centre grip shields. There are multiple sources of information on it however the tribes are very protective of their culture seeing as though their tribes had nearly become extinct due to the Dutch and British, I don't know much about the pre-boer war times and British colonisation periods but I do know that the Zulu tribes had been using some forms of leather protection

skal, i love your channel, but could you possibly post things about modern armor? id love to see some broken down whys and hows about armor selection for the modern sword/gun fighter. you do a lot of great work, i bet you out of anyone could offer a less "murica" position on ballistics (bullets, fragments, and things like shotguns) and mechanical (hammer, sword, spear, arrow) how modern armor holds up to ancient martial arts, etc. some more interesting aspects on modern protection. hope you are having a good year - Faervian (thats my IGN)

So just a clarification: The Dura Europos fragment at 6:05 is what we call exposed lacing hanging lamellar and dates to 257 AD. Simon James has proposed it was scale and used as a cuisse for a thigh, but the actual dimensions of the piece are far too large for the Human body. Although Dawson cites an earlier paper, Dawson in his "Armour Never Wearies" proposes that it was instead a neckguard for a horse. This is also supported by Nadeem Ahmad, reenactor of Eran Ud Turan and the only Central Asian reenactor in the world, who has reconstructed multiple examples of exposed lacing hanging lamellar. It is most likely that the Dura Europos piece was an import, probably from Sogdia, sold to the Roman forces there by a small arms dealer. Karanis is another issue. The scale sizes are much more debatable for whether or not it's horse or human sized. The fact that only a front half survives seems to support a horse more when combined with the large scale sizes, which would be extremely unusual for Roman infantry armor. Its construction falls under the same typology as the Tutankhamen hauberk, according to Dawson. That scale construction is a local style found in Bronze and Iron age Levantine, Egyptian, Nubian, etc. fragments and the Karanis find is the only Roman-era example of that construction. When taken in context of where it is believed to have been found, which is on a private landlord's estate, it was not a piece used by the Roman military. Rather, it seems likely that it was used by privately contracted estate guards hired from the local community. Good on the Crocodile Skin "suits". Anyways, great video Skallagrim, look forward to more of your stuff.

Let's debate about the nitty gritty details about how expensive leather armor was.

There's a good reason why leather is a good material to wear whilst riding a motorcycle. It can take quite a beating when you hit the pavement/gravel. It's pretty sturdy stuff, all things considered.

I read a book, by a Hungarian writer Géza Gárdonyi the book is called A láthatatlan ember (the invisibleman), the English name for the Book is known as Slave of the Huns. The Writer does mentions about a specific Hunnic guard group (Pechenegs maybe) that wore a scale/lamellar armor made from Cattle horns.

Siberia (and Russia as a whole) is such an interesting "place": The Pontic Steps, Koergan Cultures, Horses, Yamnaya Culture... So many cultures rose and fell on it, or past trough it and their legacy can be found everywhere to this day!

"And the way I talked back then was kinda cringey" Cue the videos showing up on the internet.

“Leather and bone armor are complete fantasy!” Skall: “That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo 👉👉”

7:05 what about the Pickelhaube, used by Imperial Germany at the end of the 19th century up to the beginning of WWI. I believe it was made of several layers of boiled, pressed leather

been a sub since like 2000 subs man. Love watchin and am so glad you got all the support and so many subs! Congrats!

Gonna add one point as a Tibetan with a nyarong-wa dad(which was renowned for its warriors given their geographic location at the east of Tibet), Tibetan warriors would usually follow the use of having braided hair wound around their head to make an ‘organic’ head protection. This would be with some kind of metal wire that would help reinforce it. Keeping their heads both warm and somewhat safe from blows that happen to come at their heads. I can’t say much about the efficacy of the practice but it was more popular as an option so I’d guess it did the job well enough.

Putting leather ontop of mail would make alot of sense since the mail shirt is often loose and uses up energy the more you move around. The leather holds it tight to you so it doesnt snag or use up your energy as much. Leather vanbraces finally make some sense now to me. I mean an archers bracer always made sense or bracers over arms and legs to prevent scratches from brambles and such. I feel in war leather wouldnt be common but everyday comfort items maybe. Youve made me wonder and think.

I was actually hyped after I heared skalla metion findings from Estonia, freaking nobody even knows something called "Estonia" exists.

Something about the vambraces at 13:20 made me stop and look at them like "huh". I then spotted the box on the top left say "Estonia". Considering the fact that I'm estonian made me even more befuddled, because I'm absolutely positive I haven't been to the museum they're housed in. My best guess is that some history book had a picture of them. feels weird Edit: lmao and then skall says it out loud too

When it comes to Greece it seams that during the archaic and early classical age leather armors(spolas) were an alternative to the bronze armor and based on their description they were basically like the famous linothorax (and probably those spolas armors were more antic Greek while the linothorax and linen as armor in general seams to be a thing the Greeks adapted from the Persian wars)

Been way to long sense I've watched one of your videos, really refreshing!

you know i kinda feel that the finger guards you showed might have been used by archers, i think drawing and releasing a heavy bow can be quite uncomfortable, but with those leather pieces one could protect ones bow drawing fingers.

Now the real question.Beard armor. Armor made out of a beard or armor for your beard.

Wooden cod piece, wooden gauntlets, wooden helmet, yes splinter the enemy.

Very late to comment on this, but I only just recently discovered this channel. I personally always figured that leather vambraces were probably quite common in medieval times... for archers. A bowstring can do some serious damage to your arm if it isn't protected and there _is_ definitely evidence of vambraces (or something similar) in medieval depictions of archers. Even in modern archery, arm guards/bracers are quite common. And leather is one the more common materials for them. If you're a medieval archer who's going to need an arm guard anyway _and_ can expect to see combat, it would make sense to just make that arm guard a bit sturdier than it strictly needs to be, so as to be able to use it as a functional piece of armor as well, wouldn't it?

As a slight addition. The Native Americans of the Great Plains used a lot of bone armor, which was hollowed and run on strings into breastplates. Supposedly, they were decent at turning stone arrowheads, and were fairly good protection against blunt weapons, however the lack of backplates, or any other armor on the body, usually limited its effectiveness to the point where most historians attribute it to being more ceremonial than effective as armor. Otherwise, awesome video Skall. Definitely glad to see someone using as unbiased a view as possible for a human to try to find the truth between the extremes of argument.

Damn Skall! You have really thinned out over the years. Looking good man! Love the videos!

Man you have no idea how long i've been waiting for this video. It felt like everything HEMA talked about was Plate Armor and Swords specifically, i wish to see more of Axes and Maces or talks about Warhammers.

That leather is what we call sole leather it is used to make boot soles and heels

Fascinating video. It certainly gives me new ideas about what everything in ASoIaF looks like. Thanks a bunch.

Damn, those Siberian armours look fucking badass!

Wouldn't plain leather vambrace be most common for archers? Seems like something that's useful outside of war, which would be hunting. In just hunting you only need it for the inner arm of the bow holding arm, but might as well do the whole shebang if you're expecting to war. Even if they wear mail, it seems like something that would prevent the string from grating against the mail, damaging it. I definitely wouldn't want the string on one of them long bows to snap.

Shad: but suppose I was wrong about leather armour!!!

If I can have wooden PC, then I'm sure they've made wooden armors.

would love to see a video about the coolest looking historical armors

my father has an old belt sent by my uncle and its made of crocodile skin.so now that you made this vid, i went to the locker and took it ,he doesnt use it ,its broken and just thrown there. so i tried to do cuts with my camping axe that is VERY sharp ,it does cut paper like you do in some tests.i tried it 3 different ways. hold it on a 10 inch pile of old clothes i use to clean things,just some rags.3 hits, no cut . than i put it around a plastic bottle full to the top with water.3 hits, no cut. than i put it on the ground and hit it as hard as i could. first hit, it bent and went a little burried into the ground. than put a piece wood under it and both hits did cut trough ,the wood piece broke in halv,wasnt cut.so what i deduce is that if you have 2 or 3 layers of croc skin you could be preety much safe from 90% of the blows if you consider that you will not be just a standing target waiting to be hit. you will dodge, move around ,try to evade etc.main thing is the blows on you moving around wont come at a perfect angle or at full force so there is a huge chance to get hit and not cut trough 2 or 3 layers .big chance. only thing i could go with in favor of the weapon is that you still get the pain from the hit cause leather is not so good at absorbing power. it will bend and you will feel the blow of a sword like being hit hard with a boken, a wooden sword.you will feel that for sure. but thats better than dieing right?:)

Hm, but what about wooden armor? Or stone armor? Because wood at least seems like probably effective material, and stone just sounds wacky enough for someone to have tried that out in history.