African Armored Infantry

[Saxon with a Seax]

Hey everyone. I just had a question about how common it was for infantrymen in Pre-Colonial Sub-Saharan Africa to wear body armor. Now I know that in the Sahelian states it was quite common for cavalrymen to wear various forms of armour, from padded cloth to chain mail and even iron cuirasses.

 

   

 
I also know that in the Kingdom of Benin, noblemen (who fought as infantry) would wear armor made from materials such as padded basketwork, pangolin scales or coral beads.

 

   

However, I am unsure whether this armor was commonly worn in battle or if it was purely ceremonial? I would also like to know if other African peoples made use of armored infantrymen? The only other reference I could find was of Balui pirates on the Ubangui river (in the modern day DRC) wearing leather armor, and I could only find that reference in the army lists for a wargame called "Death in the Dark Continent".
Thank you for any replies

 

[matmohair1]

Ceramonial armor is a misleading concept, all societies with access
to armor would use it on both the battlefield and in ceremony. In many
occasions armor was mostly available only to those who can afford it
like kings, chieftains, nobility, elite troops and guards ... etc.
As a result, it was more often adopted by cavalry, than infantry.

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Moreover, African modes of warfare didn't require a lot armor. Wide scale deployment
of armories requires metal sources via mining or trade, and outside pressures
to adapt to more brutal forms of combat, which is why armored troops were more
commonly seen in the East and North of the continent, rather than in Sub-Saharan Africa...

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illustration of Angus McBride showing a war-dance being performed by warriors and
noblemans in one of the great ritual compounds of the Zimbabwe kingdom

African Armor Timeline (updated)

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Ancient Nubians and Ku****es

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Phoenicians traders trading with Mandé merchants of the Pre-Imperial Mali
of the Tichitt-Walata cliffs of Southern Mauritania - 10th or 8th century BC

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Ethiopian and Nubian warriors in linothorax
serving the Achaemenid empire - 5th century BC

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statue of a Nubian horseman in Ptolemaic service
from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg

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Numidian Cavalry, serving the
Carthaginian empire 3rd century BC

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Ku****e Kingdom of Meroe, Nubia - 2nd century AD

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East African and Middle Eastern armored infantry,
in chain mail and crocodile armor - 3rd century AD

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Nubian and Ethiopian Royalty - 3rd to 6th centuries AD

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Nubia and Sudan - 9th to 11th centuries AD

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Afro-Saharan warriors serving in Spain - 12th to 13th centuries

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Djenne terracotta warriors,
Mali Empre -  13th to15th centuries

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Mansa Musa emperor the Malian Empire - 14th century

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Oba (king) of the Benin empire receiving 
Portuguese ambassadors - 16th century

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Portuguese in Ethiopia - 16th century

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Central Africa Sultanates -  16th to 20th century

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Northern Sudan - 16th to 20th century

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Ring Armor from Sudan

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Nigeria

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Crocodile breastplate from Southern Egypt, Pitt Rivers Museum
Founding Collection. Given to the Museum in 1884

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Crocodile skin armor and
Quilted jacket from Cameroon

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Fulani cavalryman with similar Quilted jacket

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Asante empire, Ghana - 19th and 20th centuries

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Sotho, Basotho and Pedi, brass gorgets

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Zulu brass armbands

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[PotatoKat]

Those are very cool armour! 

 

[matmohair1]

Ashanti, Melnikov A.V. Para bellum! No. 22, 2004

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire

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Jihad and the creation of Fulbe states in West Africa.
Melnikov A.V. "Para bellum!" No. 28, 2007

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula_jihads

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cover art by DP Aleksinsky, mounted guard of the Emir

Sokoto Caliphate, Hausa infantry

Sokoto Caliphate, Fulbe mounted guard and light cavalryman