Sarmatian Riders Simonenko

[Alanus]

Yes. I think so. I think Simonenko was simply saying that Sarmatians didn't confine their armor to just scale, as we see in the Roman interpretation on Trajan's Column. I was never impressed by the Trajan depictions, either. They are inaccurate.

The idea of using a combination of lamellar, scale, and even chainmail (as you noted) is probably an old one, but it seems to be "Eastern" (Saka), and Simonenko notes that the (Western) Scythians were the ones who used straight scale armor, not combined with other forms. I have mentioned Eastern armor of the Orlat plaque and Sarmatian type is correctly shown in John Woo's film, Red Cliff. The armor shown shows that the Han era Chinese used armor types borrowed from the Sarmatians and Koreans.

Also, that film very accurately depicts the two styles of sword. The single-edged knife style (dao) was used by the common soldier, the double-edged style used by the court nobles and being referred to by Simonenko as the "Type 1 Sarmatian" sword. Incidentally, in the movie the actress Zhou Wei carries the sword that I designed with Jkoo a few years ago. I think Jkoo made all of the Han type swords for the film... but they didn't get any credit. :dizzy:


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