Click to expand any thumbnail images;

These are dome-like fixtures dating allegedly from the Han dynasty mostly. There is variation in the size, but here put into row as large, medium and small.
Most are gold gilded over the bronze, although the far right in the middle row seems to be plain bronze and two in the front (both one on the left front and second on the left) are silver gilded.
The plain gold domes with a spike reverse which form the majority are from a group said to be from Han.

The reverse shows most of them seem to affix in the same way to something by a spike on the hollow reverse.
One on the right and centre is of unsure dating, but seems to be some part of a horses harness decoration (see the Qin example on this thead) and is attached in a different way. The silvered dome on the front left is also made to be attached like a button or decoration on a horse bridle.
The majority that are left of all sizes appear to be the same sort of fixtures, just in different sizes.
None have any evidence of traces in the patina to suggest they attached to something organic..like wood or leather, but it doesnt mean they couldn't have been affixed to wood.

Long iron spike with bronze head & gold gilting. The object clearly attached into wood as there are remains of wood on the tip near the point.
This seems to be a structural object and has some differences to the studs above....it is functional but the gilt end would appear much the same when bolted into wood.
These objects were sold assumed to have been on a coffin or a tomb door. Either is possible. Examples of stone doors and lintels from Han were displayed at Xian, and wooden equivalnets must have existed.
The traces of rusted stains from long gone iron attachments could be seen on some Han examples on display in CHina.


Link is broken...will add the long spike again at a later date.
This shows a solid dome as well as a cast design, different to the plainer hollow studs.

Detail of the incast design in the gold. My wife recognised it as a flower which hadn't initally occured to me.

An ancient Chinese coffin. The Chinese layered their coffins, and the powerful could have an outer coffin the size of a minivan (much larger than this), the beams from such coffins I had seen where the size & thickness of railway sleepers.
A decorated spike like this makes a lot of sense, as stone coffins could be carved with detail, or wooden coffins laquered. Gold studs as decoration could embellsih and beautify the iron that secured wooden doors or coffins together.

One clue as to what these attached to, at least in some instances, came from an assorted group of small bronze pieces.
Here is a gold stud from the first row (small) which a thin sheet of bronze with a gold gilt upper facing also.
It required cleaning a little of both the sheet and the dome ot confirm the gilding, and even a lose piece of a bronze sheet mixed in there too had gold atop and a hole through the middle, apparently from an even larger spike than the examples I had here.
Both have traces of organic material at the rear facng, and gold on the upper facing.
The lose sheet has something more like loose fibre from hair or lose plant fibre at the rear and it seems to be a backing for attachment.

The reverse of the small gold dome & the attached sheet shows several layers of very fine woven fabric, quite certainly silk and very well made. The contrast between the quality of fabric liek this and other fabrics on ancient bronze form plant fibre like hemp is clear..and this weave compares more than favourably if I compare some modern linens or clothing that I examine under magnification.
Bear in mind the dome here is <3cm in diameter and the flat bronze sheeting is broken from a larger surface of cast bronze <1mm thick.
Click to enlarge photo.
The spike protrudes far enough to show it was then attached to something else again.

THis shows similar fine weave silk traces in minerals ATOP the gold gilt domes....
this is a large dome, top left in the first photo.
Again the fine thread/fabric is clear and this image is clearer than the naked eye. (click to enlarge)


Physical remains of silk fabric (which is very fragile) atop a medium sized gilt dome, mostly the silk is only left as an imprint or is converted into a mineral but this is some actual remains at points on the dome.
It is impossible to remove the soil without destroying the silk as it isn't preserved in a harder mineral form as others can be. A large area of the top has visible remains, although again the actual size of the image is much enlarged and this isn't so visible without magnification. A very fine fabric.
(click to enlarge)


possible explanation for silk atop gold domes; this is a view inside the tomb of the Marquis of Dai..who has a thread of her own on CHF!
It dates from West Han, during the reign of Wendi, and the silk draped chamber is clear. If these studs could be the inside of wooded chambers and the iron bolts with gold tops the outer then it could explain the fact that silk laid atop the domes as they decorated walls like this.


Another example of silk on Han era coin, an imprint in soil and mineral form. The same sort of fine weave. I have a pair like this and the silk is on both sides. Coins were dropped into graves and this suggest silk on the interior of the tomb again.
Ancient hemp or plant fibre fabrics I have seen on belthooks and bronze mirrors by comparison are coarse and much less fine weave.

Fabric traces of silk or hemp can be seen on a surprising number of ancient bronze, and it is something I look for actively. The oxegen deprived enviroment underground seems to slow the decay of the carboneous materials like wood, string or fabric just long enough for the patina forming on bronze to hold the trace or form, either as converted material or a simple imprint.
This tomb scene below is just one possible explanation, but one that I favour at the moment.
The addition of the gold sheet backing and silk to the rear is odd, but it could be that it was used to pin the silk in that case...and a grave robber pried it off a piece of timber from a tomb to be able to remove it.
One reason that no wood traces have been seen on the reverse of the domes (yet) is that the walls of tombs these were pinned into from mid West Han may have been ceramic bricks, or even plaster, as the burial stlye changed from the shaft burial type and into a chambered burial.

What these actaully attach to is not known for certain. Hopefully some text or image I see in future may have an answer. Other possibilities for these fixtures are shown below;
Another collector with the same items said of the spiked hollow domed studs;


Qin terracota warriors show studs of some sort on armour plates, and they may fall into the smallest size of the domes shown here. Images of Qin leather laminar such as the kneeling crossbowman show domes or studs on individual plates

See Yang Hong 'Weapons in Ancient China, for an example of Shang armour decorations.
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These circular studs are from off horse harness/chariot fixtures found in the charior pits of Qin SHiHuangs tomb. The objects I showed with loops at the reverse instead of spikes could easily fit onto a horse harness at the joint areas.
On reins of chariots the possiblity of these spiked domes fitting onto the wooden chariot as decoration is also a possiblity.
(click to see detail of bronze studs & links)


examples of large a small ancient Chinese harness links as well as another item type of unclear function; the 'parasol tip'
http://s8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Cent...hp?showtopic=15

The mystery is fairly well solved over what these are. The fittings with a bar at the back or the X bar on the reverse were shown in 'Ancient Chinese Weapons; A Collection of Pictures' to be off Zhou era leather armour. Those show in the text were exactly the same in appearance.
The spiked studs I still believe fit on coffins or the like. A thread on a West Zhou tomb on this same forum was also explaining how drapping the coffin in silk was thought to help keep away spectres according to one Han era account and so fittings, so studs underneath or even studs affixed atop the silk in the case of some, would explain these contacts.

About time I added this image.
From another thread here is an explanation of at least a sub-group of these domes.
Bronze was never used as armour by itself but was sometimes attached to leather armour for decoration (being cast too small, cast too thin, or unsuitable forms to have been anything else as explained on the thread).
On the subject (or rather the absence) of real Chinese bronze armour I wrote on;
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=15438

Small bronze fittings to add to leather armour are in fact reasonably common items, those depicted in 'Ancient Chinese Weapons; A collection of pictures' show several examples and I have seen quite a number also. The domes with bars on the reverse appear with enough frequency to suggest leather armour was being buried in tombs, along with the masses of bronze weapons being unearthed in China in recent times, and the importance of these is rather neglected.
These simpler bronze armour fittings I have also posted on the forum, as I have some in my collection of the basic dome type (identical to the example in Cheng Dong's book). The right example is silver gilt bronze {or possibly a 'white' bronze}.

I have that book, I don't think it showed where those studs attached to armor. You have any idea?
Too thin for protective value so just decoration.

No! These small bronze/alloy studs can help deflect impacts of sharp objects and cuts from a blade while maintaining a light weight. The bars inside the hollow dome were for reinforcement of the dome and for mounting/sewing on to the leather.

Yes, the bars on the back allowed it to be sewed onto leather. Thats patently obvious.

No, they are not effective armour and neither should they be classed as 'armour' so your correction is at best in error and it is certainly misleading to do so.
Such small domes are like carrying a ciggerette case of silvered metal in your pocket or having a big shiny belt buckle in the shape of Texas. Maybe if the bullet or knife happened to hit you there it might stop it. Maybe. They are small & thin.
Clearly these are not intended as protection of any consequence even if they do look fashionable.
If only the opponent was so obliging where they wounded you! Such happenings are about extreme good fortune and not about calling an object like that an example of armour in any sense.
i.e; In the Spring & Autumn period one prince of Qi (Xiao-bo) was saved from assasination when an arrow stuck his belt buckle, and his survival was not known by the assasin (Guan Zhong) since he played dead.
Should we then declare equally that a bronze belt buckle is a form of ancient Chinese armour.? I have a number of these too...see http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Cent...hp?showtopic=23 and the answer of course is no.
Do you have an example in a Zhou Chinese account where a small dome similarily stopped such a injury anyway? Is that the purpose of the domes as you are implying?
.....or were you just expressing your opinion with undue authority?

Of 3 scholars who have each written on ancient armours (Yang, Dien, Dong,) they all agree with the more sensible view that such small bronze fittings as these little domes do not represent armour and are purely for decoration purposes.
They are not considered effective, and the first metal armour in China occurs some centuries later.
This is proven in that once iron comes into use there is true metal armour and it takes an entirely different form as connecting lamellar plates mimicing the leather forms, and such gaudy domes were even before this abandoned in the more serious era of the East Zhou warfare. They were not practical, just like the bells and rattles on earlier style chariots which were abandoned over time also.
Bronze domes are a fashion, and a dead end. As Yang Hong said only the richest people could afford to add these items to leather armour. Bronze of anything other than these tiny domes (i.e openwork plaques or discs) are extremely rare.
In later times some wealthy peoples iron armour was gilt with gold and silver. This gilding was not to increase armour value either.

Following the link on post #7 will show you the consensus amongst authors on bronze fittings as decoration, and the earliest metal armour being iron.
These domes after all are no more than the size of a coin and do not occur in numbers to suggest they were numerous enough to be armour in function or effectiveness, (& to answer TMPikachu)
i.e In one excavation small bronze fixtures were found in a cluster around the feet only and were thought to be on a pair of boots. In another instance there were a number of domes on a piece of head gear. The rest of the bodies in those cases lacked the domes & fixtures.
These are ornaments. They are decoration only.

Wingchuntaiji, Do you have any examples where a tiny stud like this was positioned on armour in a way to deflect blows? How can you deduce thus was the purpose? Do you even know where or how they were positioned on the body?
Any evidence at all or supporting commentary?

This sort of statement is in contradiction to my own....I detect the postings of Master Randy Li.
I am not interested in CHF becoming an arena like Chicochai. Bring some facts or evidence before the idle speculation begins.

Please don't hijack this topic. The comments on this class of bronze dome is based on previous scholarship and my personal observation instead of just personal fantasy more akin to a Kung Fu movie.
The chances of you even seeing a West Zhou bronze dome from off armour like this before you made your comments are pretty low. Do not try and bluff on subjects such as this.
If you state such things with false authority you will only confuse the readers & I will not tolerate it unless you do it responsibly and with some basis in fact.

PS Randy,
Congrats on passing the Xiucai scholar exam.
If you want to add to the topic of 'did Chinese wear bronze body armour' as was discussed at length in a previous month the link is there but I would expect there to be some use of evidence or sources or sound logic if you are to re-open the debate.