Modern »Schuppenketten« from Roman find spots

Abstract

The use of metal detectors during archaeological excavations in recent years has caused many modern objects to be found and wrongly identified as antique. This is the case for some scales of bronze that are connected with the army of Late Antiquity because they do not fit in the typology of regular Roman examples. The low number of only two holes and the two or more bows at one of the narrow sides show that these scales are part of so-called Schuppenketten, that are elements of helmets (for example of the German spike helmet) and cuirasses of the 19th and the early 20th centuries.