Hello Folks, I just came across this site a few days ago. I fell in love with the Benin Empire when I saw my first bronze plaque of a warrior. Physics, the way you interpret the bronzes is great. I belong to a living history society and I have been studying the bronzes for a few years now trying to determine how warriors armed and dressed themself. Your observations are great, but I would disagree about them using chain mail. I think mail would have been portrayed as dots or circles, just as the leopards spots are represented as circles. I believe the long studded robes are constructed with beads. If you look at bronze heads, coral beads are represented as cylinders. If you look at the beaded anklets worn by many of the figures, they are also represented as cylinders. These same shapes are repeated in the robes. I have come across references of leopard, crocodile and pangolin hides being used as armor,but never heard of elephant being used. It would make sense though, seeing as how ivory was used in jewelry and ancestral heads. I'm a member of a Medieval History Society, and I portray a Benin warrior.