There has been conflicting ideas to the purpose of the 800 copper plates. Although they have been assumed to be scales of armor from an Egyptian army unit, as proposed by archaeologist Shmuel Yeivin, recent reevaluations have confuted this claim. Archaeologist William A. Ward proposed that the scales were means of barter or a reserve supply of metal from the Syro-Palestinian area. Ward arrived at this conclusion through several pieces of evidence: the scales were not attached to any jacket, body armor was generally not used by the Egyptians until the New Kingdom, copper was still very rare, and the plates were too thin for body armor.