BONN, GERMANY—Gizmodo reports that researchers have used X-ray and CT scans to study a 30-pound block of corroded Roman chain mail that was unearthed in a settlement outside a legionary fortress in modern-day Bonn, Germany. The team discovered that the hoard consists of two nearly complete sets of armor and parts of two others, suggesting that it was a stockpile intended to be used by local civilian craftspeople to repair Roman mail coats. “This is the first clear evidence that mail armor was being repaired outside a Roman military installation,” said archaeologist Martijn A. Wijnhoven of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The discovery shows the extent to which Roman soldiers stationed on the periphery of the empire relied on local labor to help maintain their equipment. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read in-depth about the life of legionnaires stationed far from Rome, go to “The Wall at the End of the Empire.”
