IRAN, 6-8TH CENTURY

As recently as 1979 it was thought that "surviving examples of Near and Middle Eastern armour ...... are unknown before the thirteenth century" (Michael Gorelik, "Oriental armour of the Near and Middle East from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries as shown in works of art", in Robert Elgood (ed.), Islamic Arms and Armour, London, 1979, p.31). Research therefore concentrated, as in his article, on trying to reconstruct the history of the development of styles of armour from works of art, particularly miniatures. A Soghdian plate dating to the eighth to ninth centuries depicts helmets with bowed eyebrows, rounded form and upper roundel finial, all features found here in the present example (Gorelik, op.cit, pl.35, p.31). The bowed eyebrows and a central ridge are also found on a helmet of rounded form depicted in the rock carvings of Khusraw II at Taq-i Bustan (H. Russell Robinson, Oriental Armour, London, 1967, fig.11, p.23).