Query regarding Mail Horse Barding

[Lagartija Mike]

When, if ever, was it present in Central Asia and points East?

[sukhe_bator]

Mail was used by both the Romans and Persians at Dura Europos ca. 260AD and there is evidence of Sarmatian/Scythian mail around that time. It was more widespread in settled urban communities with access to the right materials thus Rome and the Middle East are widely considered the main disseminators if not originators of the technology. Sassanid Persia used mail usually in combination with an admixture of lamellar. The famous Khusru II rock carving ca.620 AD depicts the ruler in mail but the half bard is most likely to be lamellar https://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/581/flashcards/4060581/jpg/ss33677_33677_1505180-142D831734111952EAA.jpg
Central Asian nomads did not have the natural resources or the necessary sedentary skillset of metalworkers - hence their reliance on leather, horn and small metal plated scale or lamellar. I'd hazard a guess that it was not until post Mongol invasions that such technology was widely exported into Central Asia, China and beyond. Military technicians of conquered territories were shipped East by Chinggis K and his successors. Although the Chinese were eminent technicians fully capable of making mail, their reliance on conscript and citizen militias for the bulk of their troops placed a premium on mass producing cheaper armours of leather scale, lamellar, metal plate and even laminated paper. Mail was too expensive and labour intensive to produce on a large scale. It was only in Japan where there was a flourishing elite clientele for lavish armour that mail emerged there but even then that was probably not until the late 1400s and early 1500s. It was probably introduced into the Philippines by Muslim traders etc. in the C17-C18. Mail found in Tibetan and Nepalese caches in monasteries is probably centuries old and highly prized and probably dates from this eastward spread in the 1300 and 1400s.

[sukhe_bator]

The upshot of all of that is that mail barding in Central Asia was probably even rarer having to cover a much larger surface area. Almost all illustrations depict armoured mongol or Persian horses in cloth/leather/lamellar bards

[Lagartija Mike]

Thanks, this was my thought as well but I was doing some wishful thinking while debating whether or not to bard a few horses of a Göktürk tarkhan and retinue  unit with mail to break up the usual texture of lamellar. The only Central Asian mail armors I know of are the later Tibetan pieces you mentioned and smaller bits in some of the Sengoku yoroi.

[sukhe_bator]

You could conceivably get away with arming the leader with a looted prize mail coat and model it just peeking out from underneath his long coat/kaftan and lamellar 'flak jacket'. Alternatively hidden or jazerant armours were also popular (certainly they crop up in parts of the Middle East and India) these look like ceremonial robes but have a mail coat sandwiched between the richly decorated fabric layers...