Metallurgy of armour exhibited at the Palace Armoury, Valletta, Malta

Abstract

The metallurgy of ten armour pieces from the Palace Armoury Collection in Malta was examined. Results showed that out of ten artefacts examined, six were produced in low carbon steel, one from a high carbon steel and three were made from wrought iron. One of the wrought iron armour pieces was fabricated from a phosphoric iron, an unusual material for these artefacts. All the steel artefacts exhibited a ferrite-pearlite microstructure. In their manufacture, no attempts had been made at producing martensite by full or slack quenching. All metal fragments contained slag inclusions. The elongated nature of the latter suggested that these artefacts were forged into shape.