Mughal Weaponry in Medieval India
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Mughal Armor and Shields
Within the age of the Mughal Empire, platemail is first introduced and is widely available. While scalemail and chainmail were popular since the 12th century that served as excellent protection against slashing weapons (such as swords) and piercing weapons (like daggers), they had little protection against blunt weapons that hit with a lot of power (such as a mace). Plate armor was much better at protecting against this, as well as protecting against musketballs when fired from a far distance. While wearing full platemail was uncommon, many pieces of armor incorporated platemail in small sections to cover vulnerable areas such as the stomach, chest, thighs, arms, and head.
Most men at war did not wear such heavy armor, however. Most common was simply a chainmail shirt, and possibly a helmet. Seen below is the type of chainmail shirt that would be typically be worn by a Mughal horseman/archer (often the same person). Chainmail is light, breathable, easy to manufacture (in comparison to platemail or scalemail), cheap, and still provides good defense against enemy swords and arrows. However, anything with significant thrusting power (such as a dagger or arrow from a bow with large draw weight) may be able to penetrate the chains. Musketballs fired from Jezails would be the biggest threat to these soldiers. Some soldiers, though, didn't wear any armor, especially rocketmen and archers.
The Dhal is a Mughal shield of varying sizes, usually between 16 and 24 inches, either acting as a buckler or a full sized shield. It was always round, usually with 4 rivitted bumps holding the grip to the shield. It was made of stained leather and steel, but often ornamental shields were made with the hide of varying animals lined with gold or silver. In the photo below, the shield we see is likely gold, with the leather over it pealing off.
Mughal
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Brief History of the Mughal Empire
In 1526, Babur, a Timurid (empire which countrolled much of central asia at the time) chieftain, employed aid from the Iranian and Ottoman empires to defeat and overthrow the current Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi. After their defeat, the Mughal Empire was established. At it's height, the empire extended from Bengal to the Indus River at it's east and west ends, and the Himalayas to the European-Controlled coast at it's north and south ends.
Muskets or Bows?
Mughal India was known as one of the three Islamic 'gunpowder empires,' as the trade and usage of gunpowder was frequent within the military of the empire. Mughal india had access to rockets (known as
Artist's Statement
Medieval Weaponry is really interesting to me, but when we talk about medieval weaponry, we most often focus on two areas of the world; Europe and East Asia. We have all sorts of stories about knights in shining armor, and ninjas or samurais with their katanas, but the middle east and southern Asia often don’t get these types of conversations. And that’s a real shame, because weaponry is interesting anywhere you go, especially before guns became as powerful and conventional as they were in the 1600s and onwards.
Mughal India exists in an odd temporal state- during the entirety of the countries existence, it was considered a ‘Gunpowder Empire,’ but it started early enough that guns were unconventional for full-time infantry use (1500s) and the empire ended as it was nearly mandatory to use them (late 1700s). This transition is odd, but it makes the weaponry all the more interesting. The powerful
This isn’t to mention the pure creativity of Mughal Weaponry, like the dual-tongued