What did Roman soldiers do when their chain mail required fixing? Head to a local craftsperson

A recent study published in the journal Antiquity sheds new light on how Roman soldiers maintained and repaired their chainmail armor on the empire's northern frontiers. Researchers from Czechia and Germany examined a 14-kilogram clump of ancient Roman mail armor discovered in 2012 during excavations in a civilian settlement outside the Bonn legionary fortress in Germany. The findings suggest that soldiers stationed far from production centers relied on local craftspeople for equipment repairs, highlighting a crucial relationship between military units and surrounding civilian communities.

The Bonn discovery included two nearly complete sets of mail armor and parts of two more, all rusted together into a single solid mass. According to Phys.org, the research team used high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans to study the armor without dismantling it. "To look inside the solid mass of Roman armor, only CT scans provided satisfactory results, " said Holger Becker from the LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn. "X-ray technology allows us to see what cannot be seen with the naked eye," he added.

Mail armor, made of thousands of tiny linked rings, presented unique challenges for repair and recycling. Unlike other metal objects that could be melted down, chainmail couldn't be repurposed easily in this way. Instead, soldiers patched broken armor using pieces from other damaged sets, similar to mending worn-out clothing. This method was especially necessary along the empire's northern frontiers, where supply lines were thin, and soldiers couldn't always obtain new supplies.

The researchers suggest that the Bonn hoard likely represents a stockpile of mail intended for repairing other garments. "Rather than repurposing the metal, mail garments were recycled by using them as 'donors' to patch others," the researchers wrote. This practice indicates that Roman soldiers on the frontiers were more self-sufficient, adapting to harsh conditions by repairing and recycling their own armor.

"This is the first clear evidence that mail armor was being repaired outside a Roman military installation," said Dr. Martijn Wijnhoven, according to Gizmodo. The discovery underscores the connection between Roman forts and surrounding civilian settlements, highlighting the Roman military's dependence on local craftspeople to stay battle-ready.

"As the Roman Empire expanded into new territories, often far from the regions where military equipment was originally produced, the Roman army faced a growing demand for self-sufficiency," the researchers wrote. This need was especially significant along the German frontier, where "it was necessary for military units to become involved in the manufacture of their own equipment," as reported by Gizmodo.

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq