Abstract
Weapons and armour were among the most frequently made offerings found in the sanctuaries of the Greek world from the Late Geometric period onward. There has been much significant scholarship focused on the theories concerning their significance and origin.
A particular attention has been paid to different parts of protective armour, predominantly made of bronze, which tends to - in comparison to iron swords or spearheads - be better preserved in the archaeological record. Furthermore, the rich decoration of numerous headgears, cuirasses, and components of body armour also contributes to their prominence in research publications.
However, one group of findings has so far escaped the attention of many - the metal scales, which belonged to either the composite corselets or the entire scale armours. Only individual examples have so far been identified and analysed in detail (e.g., from Delphi, Olympia, Philia).
This is mainly due to the bad state of preservation of the thin plates and a general lack of research interest in the past. New findings gathered from the latest excavations at the sanctuary of Apollo in Didyma, however, can shed light on the appearance in the Aegean of this originally Near Eastern component of protective armour and inform our understanding of the meaning of these objects, which have been found within the sacred context of sanctuaries.
Based on the recent archaeological discoveries in Ionia, this paper describes the metal plates that formed scale armour components from the Geometric to the Classical period. It highlights not only their typology, but also their material characteristics.
Analytical techniques allow us to reverse engineer the characteristic technical steps in the production of different types of armour scales as well as the rich object biographies of specific artefacts to very high degrees of resolution. By these means, we can propose more informed reconstructions of the appearance and function of this distinct type of protective armour in the Aegean and to compare it to the examples from their supposed locus of origin, the Near East.