«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 104 n David Nicolle shields were famous for the quality of their leather around the same time, and so it is tempting to imagine that these “Tibetan” cuirasses were similarly of leather construction. Descriptions, both poetic and factual, of the famous lam ṭ shields of North Africa and the Sahara make it abundantly clear that very sophisticated, even “mysterious” and “secret” leather-working processes were involved, and there is no reason to doubt that a similar degree of sophistication was seen in the manufacture of hardened leather cuirasses, helmets and horse-armour. Here it should be noted that horse-armour known as tijfāf or mujaffafah in Arabic, or bargustuwān in Persian, was relatively common in the early and later medieval Islamic world, whereas it was virtually unknown in Europe until the 13 th century. Until the Mongol invasions, most such Islamic horse- armours seem to have been of quilted or felt construction rather than leather or other forms of lamellar construction, though there were exceptions as early as the 10 th century. By far the most important and detailed account of hardened leather armour in the medieval Islamic world is, of course, al-Tar ṣ ū ṣ ī's recipe for making such defences in his Tab ṣ irat arbāb al-lubāb . Although this has been translated into French by Claude Cahen and more recently edited by Shihab al-Sarraf, it re- mains difficult to interpret both in terms of its terminology and its techniques. Cahen never claimed to be an expert in leatherworking, but al-Tar ṣ ū ṣ ī's ac- count is sufficiently detailed for a reconstruction to be attempted by someone with suitable facilities and advice from an expert in leatherworking. This really should be done, particularly as we now have pieces of armour from this period or only a century or so later, available for research and comparison. Since these fragments include both body armour and helmets or reinforced hard-hats, they are of added importance for the simple reason that al-Tar ṣ ū ṣ ī stated that his recipe was suitable for making both a jawshan lamellar cuirass and a khūdh helmet. In fact al-Tar ṣ ū ṣ ī offered two basic recipes, the first of which includes sev- eral variations in both ingredients and decoration though the basic material remained “shavings” of kîmukht (generally translated as rawhide in medieval Farsi though this term is far from precise). The second and far less detailed recipe is essentially the same as that for making lam ṭ shields. Essentially, it consists of treating camel-skins in a mixture of milk and soda. This second recipe is, however, less interesting in the present context than the first. This first recipe offers a way of making and moulding a “paste” or “soft mass” of reconstituted leather and other materials which could then be formed into almost any desired shape. The final decoration ranges from surface gilding to various forms of varnishing and even coating the elements with iron-filings. Perhaps the latter was thought to strengthen or preserved the resulting lamellae