Armor excavated at Jamestown

Interesting find, misleading info in many of the writeups. Essentials here:

Archaeologists sifting through the remains of America's first permanent English settlement have discovered a rare, largely intact example of Elizabethan-era body armor known as a coat of jacks.

Used by 17th-century settlers as a defense against Indian attacks, the quilted canvas-and-iron-plate garment was the colonial version of a modern-day [flak] jacket, said Bly Straube, curator of artifacts at the Jamestown Rediscovery project. . .

Though considered obsolete in England by that that time, the sleeveless coat of jacks - which reach back to the early 1500s - still saw use in Virginia by offering valuable protection against Indian attacks.

"The Spanish went back and used them, too, because the quilted plates were more effective against arrows [than] plate armor," Straube explained. "They absorbed the blow instead of being pierced."

This may be a misquote, since plate armor gave much better protection against arrows. Indeed, Straube was quoted differently here:

"With a garment like this you could rest the butt of the gun against your chest and it wouldn't slide around," she said. Also, Spanish settlers to the south found that flexible armor could stop an arrow while also absorbing the force. With other types of armor, an arrow could bounce off and hit someone nearby, Straube said.

Yet that article in turn included the following highly misleading statement:

The piece of armor, weighing an estimated 175 pounds, was discovered Friday during excavation of a trash pit.

As it was lifted from the site, with all the surrounding accretions, soil, and consolidants, I'm sure it did weigh close to 200 lbs. As it was worn in the 17th century, however, it likely weighed in closer to 30-40 lbs.

Nothing yet on the Jamestown website; other recent finds are noted here.

Posted by David on April 13, 2005 9:52 AM