Recreating and Testing Mesoamerican Armor: Ichcahuippili (2022)

Understanding and experimenting with the arms and armor of a people can offer insight into their culture. The ancient Aztecs used a variety of cotton armor (called ichcahuipilli) which the New York Guild of Handweavers recreated into four individual square-foot swatches, allowing the armor to undergo projectile weapons testing. Ichcahuipilli was two-to-three fingers thick and consisted of unspun cotton between two pieces of cloth stitched together in a quilted pattern. Testing the durability and protection of ichcahuipilli involves shooting the armor at different distances with contemporary weapons, such as atlatl darts and obsidian tipped arrows, as well as nineteenth-century .50 caliber bullets. Analysis of the projectile damage to the surface material, penetration, and damage to ballistic gel helps determine this class of armor’s protective qualities as well as each weapon’s destructive qualities. The results offer insight into how Aztec people used ichcahuipilli and its impact on the battlefield.