The Silk Road Designs Armoury

Padded Cloth Cap
The most basic type of head protection is the padded cloth or leather cap. This may be considered the begining of helmets and is certainly the most basic Soft Helmet.
As in Europe, the padded cap was in the East worn under other helmets as padding. A padded cap is shown under the cap of Maile and Plates in the photographs here and in the photograph of the author in full armour.
It was also worn separately and, unlike European types, was specialised for wear as a separate defence. Those padded caps worn separately were far more massively padded than those worn under a helmet, many are over an inch thick. Shaped as standard helmets, with pendant ear flaps and back flaps, they were also often equiped with a steel or copper-based nasal.

Maile Cap
The other type of Soft Helmet similar to European types is the Maile cap. This often provided far more coverage than the European, as many Eastern Maile caps cover the whole head and face (while in Europe the face was usually left bare).
Another variation from the European Maile cap was that many Eastern caps have a plate scull cap only a few inches across with the Maile hanging from that, rather than having the Maile radiate from the center. This type of cap seems to have been far more common than the simple Maile cap and is generally refered to in the East as simply a Maile helmet (Kulah Zirah in Persian).

Maile-and-Plates Cap
The photos are the back and side view of a Maile-and-Plates cap. The same Maile and Plates cap is shown in the photograph of the author in full armour. Caps such as this, in a variety of specific plate patterns, were a popular style of light head armour throughout the East, including Turkey, Persia, India, Russia, and Egypt.

Scale Cap
Lamellar Cap
...and the Japanese "Folding Helmet".

Further Information on Helmets

A photograph of armour including a Maile and Plates Helmet.