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

m 108 n David Nicolle or helmet segments, or — more likely — make the protections look as if they were made of iron or even steel. Al-Tar ṣ ū ṣ ī’s assertion that armour made in this manner was particularly resistant to penetration by pointed object such as arrows and spears, while making no mention of cutting blows by a sword, opens up further fields of research if and when such armour is ever reconstructed. Preliminary test- ing of the properties of various forms of leather armour shows them to be remarkably effective, especially in resisting penetration by thrusting weap- ons such as spears or sword-points, and by missiles weapons — namely ar- rows and crossbow bolts. Furthermore Russell Mitchell, the experimental archaeologist and specialist in leather armour, has noted that rawhide is much more effective than leather or otherwise treated leather, especially against arrows and direct thrusts by pointed weapons. As expected, it was also far superior to mail armour when the latter was used on its own 1 . Then, of course, there is the question of whether such a hardened leather jawshan cuirass would have been worn over a mail armour, which experiments have already shown to be more effective against cutting blows than it was against penetrating blows. Pictorial Evidence Pictorial evidence is of relatively little use in this study, since it rarely shows clearly the material from which an armour or helmet was made. This is particularly true in the stylized and almost impressionistic art of the early medieval Islamic world before the changes brought about by Chinese artistic influence, via the Mongols, in the late 13 th and 14 th centuries. On the other hand this later medieval Islamic art emerges just in time to assist in the study of those recently discovered Syrian leather armours and helmet mentioned above. These, as already stated, probably date from the Ayyūbid or Mamlūk 1 Mitchell R. (private correspondence, 13 August 2003). Fig. 32. Interior of a laminated leather or rawhide element of a laminated, hooped style of cuirass or more likely a horse-armour, found in building CD5 of the Citadel of Damascus, late Mamlūk or very early Ottoman, late 15 th or very early 16 th century ( Inv. CD 5.2.401.[14].66, Department of Museums and Antiquities, National Museum, Damascus; author's photograph )