the plate is straight. The lower edge has a single brass mounted slit in the centre. The upper part of both plates is destroyed.
In addition to the preceding, there are some forty smaller fragments, a number of which are illustrated in Fig. 11. One of them appears to be the corner of one of the corresponding pieces of the backplate. Others from their smaller curve seem to have formed the overlapping plates employed to protect the shoulders. The width of three of these plates can still be ascertained. One (1, 1a), which was probably intended to be worn near the neck, has the edge turned back to prevent chafing, and measures three inches, a second (2) two and seven-eighths inches, and a third (3, 3a) two and an eighth inches. Each of them is furnished with a nut intended to fasten it to leather, and many show bronze rivets (13), probably for the same purpose. Two of the smaller pieces are furnished with loops for attachment. In one case the loop is of iron (4, 4a), inserted in the edge of the plate. In another it is of bronze (10). Some of these smaller plates (5, 6, 12 and 13) were probably part of the bands which went round the body. There is, however, no trace at Newstead of the characteristic hinge mountings of brass to be seen on the fragments at Carnuntum and elsewhere. While these pieces are too fragmentary to enable us to reconstruct the armour in any satisfactory way, the larger pieces from the breast and back plates furnish us with a detail which was absent at Carnuntum—the brass-mounted rectangular slits. These were doubtless intended for the passage of straps to bear the weight of the encircling iron bands worn below.
Lorica Squamata
Of the lorica squamata or scale armour the pit in the Principia (No. I) produced a remarkable specimen. No fewer than 346 armour
scales were brought to the surface. They were made of brass, which in the wet black mud had preserved its golden yellow colour. Each scale measures one and an eighth inches in length and half an inch in breadth, and one mm. in thickness. They are cut square at the upper end and rounded at the lower end. Close to the upper edge is a hole one-eighth of an inch in diameter, while a little lower down on each side are two smaller holes. The scales were fastened together by ties of brass wire, square in section, passing through the smaller holes. Through the larger upper
FIG. 12. ARMOUR SCALES
showing method of lacing
158