Quote Originally Posted by MeinPanzer View Post
If this is taken to be a hauberk, it would be our only evidence for such armour for centuries, and would also be one of the earliest representations of mail of any sort, meaning that they had somehow, very soon after inventing mail, learned how to make full hauberks, and then later either forgot how to do it or simply did not. It all seems very, very unlikely.
Well, now we're reaching a different arguement. Given the fragmented nature of metalworking skills in antiquity, there's a reasonable possibility one smith did it one time and no one could copy it. Plutarch records that Demetrios had a unique piece of body armour, one of only two in existence. Not a reliable source, granted, but still indicative of the possibilty.