0602616 - ARÚB 2025 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Wijnhoven, Martijn A. - Koppmann, C. - Becker, H.
Recycling and repair on the Roman frontier: a hoard of mail armour from Bonn.
Antiquity. Roč. 98, č. 402 (2024), s. 1592-1609. ISSN 0003-598X. E-ISSN 1745-1744
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA24-11397S
Institutional support: RVO:68081758
Keywords : Western Europe * Roman empire * military frontiers * computed tomography * armour * metal recycling
OECD category: Archaeology
Impact factor: 1.9, year: 2023 ; AIS: 0.927, rok: 2023
Method of publishing: Open access
Result website:
https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.178DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.178

The Roman army was a vast military machine that demanded huge amounts of material and complex mechanisms. A 14kg hoard of mail armour from near the Roman legionary fortress of Bonn, Germany, offers insight into the organisation of recycling and repair on Rome’s northern frontier. Computed tomography reveals there are at least four garments and suggests a likely date. The authors explore the hoard’s context and motivations for its deposition and non-retrieval, arguing it formed a collection of ‘donor’ mail for repairing other mail garments. Its discovery in a settlement outside the military fortress indicates the involvement of local craftworkers. The settlement was abandoned in the mid-third century AD.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0359847