Mirror armour
type of armor
Mirror armour (Russian: зерцало, zertsalo, meaning "mirror"; Chinese: 护心镜, hùxīnjìng, meaning "protect-heart mirror"), sometimes referred to as disc armour or as chahār-āyneh or char-aina (Persian: چهارآینه meaning "four mirrors"; whence Kazakh: шар-айна, şar-ayna), is a type of cuirass that was used mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe, including India, Iran, Tibet, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. It literally translates to "four mirrors" which is a reflection of how these pieces look, resembling four (sometimes more) metal discs or rectangular armour plates. Mirror armor was used in some cultures up to the 20th century.
Description and history
"Mirror armour" is a type of partial plate armour which was developed initially from round metal mirrors (a kind of rondel) worn over other armour (usually over mail) as reinforcement. Metal mirrors in this armour were considered as protection from not only cold steel and arrows, but also supernatural influence. It was believed that mirrors could reflect the evil eye, so they were polished and worn over other armour.
Early mirror armour consisted of a round mirror attached to the body with a few leather laces (similar to the Roman phaelerae). In Europe, they were known as kardiophylax (Greek) or apezak (Armenian) and were popular with various Bronze Age civilizations, as well as the Central Asian tribes such as the Saka and Yuezhi, and also among the Sasanians. The Kardiophylax was used by the Samnites before they developed the triple-disc cuirass. Although, it continued to be used as a Status symbol after it was discontinued from popular use.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mirror armour” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.