Welcome to new members. Wolf as a jewelry historian could you tell
me how far back we have evidence of chain maille work with rings? We
know about the knights and their armor but do we have patterned work
prior to that? Ruth Mary
Welcome to new members. Wolf as a jewelry historian could you tell me how far back we have evidence of chain maille work with rings? We know about the knights and their armor but do we have patterned work prior to that?
I’d be interested in Wolf’s view as well.
Mail (as I like to call it, because I’m English descent), has a very
long history. It was made out of bronze at one point, the Romans
used it, it was easier to product than sheet metal, hence we have a
lot of examples available to us today.
European mail was pretty ordinary, nothing fancy… well maybe a
bronze ring trim on some of the medieval examples. Rivets, solid
rings, and butted rings was about the extent of it.
Eastern mail was where it got really interesting imo. Theta mail,
mail that looked like key rings coils, mail that had tiny sheet metal
plates. The Asian mail was knitted in many different patterns.
Very interesting when you get into it.
I’d be interested in Wolf’s view as well. No man’s an island, and
I’m sure I can always learn something new.
Regards Charles A.
P.S. Wolf, I can pass on my recipe for cuirbulli if you want it 
According to Peter Connelly, mail armor was invented by the Celts at
about 300 B.C.E. (Greece and Rome at War, Peter Connelly, Greenhill
Books, 2006)
Mail armor was occasionally decorated by including a pattern of
brass rings among the steel ones. This steel & brass patterning is a
practice found more often in Middle Eastern armors than in European
ones.
Mail as a form of jewelry is a modern usage, AFAIK.
Elliot