Lorica Squamata

Lorica Squamata was a type of scaled armor used in Rome for many hundreds of years. It's not surprising when the Romans first started conquering their closest neighbors, that they were decked out in this type of armor. Scale armor was cheap to manufacture and held together well in the battlefield, because of these factors this armor was used long after newer and more advanced armors were invented.

The armor consisted of innumerable metal scales arranged in overlapping horizontal rows. Sometimes the scales were made of bronze, iron, or occasionally precious metals for ceremonial purposes. The metal scales were attached to a strong backing material usually leather. Unlike today, items of the past were not mass produced and there was a great deal of variation in size, thickness, and shape of the scales in the scaled armor. Sometimes the bottoms of the scales were flat, sometimes pointed and sometimes they were rounded. I guess the deviation made it easy to find your own armor in the morning. The Romans eventually developed a type of scaled armor that didn't require a backing, instead wiring each scale to each of its neighbors making it more resilient. This type of armor was later termed lamellar.

Roman scaled armor allowed the early Roman empire to begin their conquests that eventually led to dominating a good sized chunk of Europe, some of Asia, and Egypt. Although the Roman empire broke up only 1,800 years ago, a complete suit of the armor has never been found. Thankfully we do have a large number of single scales, statues, and texts that describe the armor to us fairly accurately.