Fit for Fighting The discovery of Mesopotamian-style armor in northwest China offers new insights into a battle-tested ancient technology By Marley Brown A set of leather scale armor (left) discovered at the Yanghai cemetery in northwest China may have been made by Neo-Assyrian artisans sometime in the seventh century b.c. It is similar to armor worn by Neo-Assyrian charioteers depicted on a contemporaneous stone relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 b.c.) at Nineveh (right). 30 ARCHAEOLOGY * May/June 2022