“He raised his shield without choosing, I found both a helmet and a sonorous horn"
("Ruslan and Lyudmila" by A. Pushkin)
The shield is the most important piece of equipment for any warrior of bygone eras. He might not have a sword, an ax, a spear … One only a sling as a weapon to take the life of his neighbor, but the shield had to be. But what about? After all, you need to protect yourself, your beloved, first of all. But what were the ancient shields? What was the very first shield and what path has this type of protective equipment traveled to the present day, that is, to those shields that we see on the news almost every day in the hands of law enforcement officers who disperse aggressive crowds? Moreover, since they were different, let's start with the most famous shields - wooden, made from the most ordinary … boards!
Shield-scutum from Dura-Europos. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Well, and you need to start with the fact that back in 1980, in issue 12 of the journal "Tekhnika-youth" (beginning p. 48), an article was published. Lieutenant Dmitry Zenin "Defenders of the Russian Land" (about the presence in Russia of chivalry similar to the Western one) and in addition to it - an article by the historian Viktor Prishchepenko "… chain mail, an oak shield and an iron sword forged from swamp ore. " By the way, in the issue of the magazine that is posted on the Internet, someone underlined this phrase. Probably, she surprised not only me alone. However, it was not the “swamp sword” and chain mail that surprised me so much as the “oak shield”. The fact is that until 1974 I lived in my own house, regularly sawed and chopped wood and knew that oak wood is strong, yes, but heavy and prickly. I would not make myself an oak shield under any guise. How was it to know who was right and who was wrong?
This is how this shield is presented in the exposition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
I went to the library of the local museum of local lore, asked for the magazines "Soviet Archeology" and found an article about round shields found in the Baltic swamps (and similar shields of the Vikings!), Made of … linden! And then information was found that according to written sources, which are known to scientists and sagas, in which the shield is often called the "Lipa of the sword", the shields should have been made of linden. Should, but were not!
The fact is that archaeological finds have not confirmed this. And although linden wood is much more suitable for making a shield, since it is both lighter and more viscous, and does not split from impact, all the shields they discovered were for some reason made of spruce, fir or pine wood. But we will return to the Vikings later. That is, the Soviet "historian" Viktor Prishchepenko had a violent, very violent imagination with his "oak shields", peasant chain mail and "swamp swords", although one cannot argue with the fact that the swords were forged from swamp ore. But they were not intended for the poor peasants.
So, which "boardwalk" claims to be the first in our country? It turns out that there is one, and … not the most ancient one. Such shields have survived to this day (!), Have been described by travelers, exhibited in museums, and come from Australia, where the aborigines still use them now. This shield is called a "parrying stick" and it is a solid piece of wood with a slot for the hand in the middle, so it has a thickening in this place. With such sticks the Australians parry the blows of throwing projectiles - spears and boomerangs. That is, the entire protection function is based on sleight of hand. But … if you nail transverse planks to this stick, knock it all down with two more slats, glue it all with fish or hoof glue, then here is a shield for you, moreover, a "shield of boards". Perhaps once people did this, but the Australians for some reason changed their minds to improve and remained naked and happy!
Painted figurines of warriors from the tomb of nomarch Mesekhti. Cairo Museum.
Turning to the era of Ancient Egypt, we will see that the shields there were used leather, but with a wooden frame. And the same could be observed in Assyria, and then in Persia. Why is it so clear. No related resources available! There is no wood, there are no "boards made of boards", but you can use wicker shields (and we see them on Assyrian reliefs) and leather, conical in shape.
Red-figure skyphos depicting fighting Spartans with Argive shields. Campaign. Author: "Master of the Duel". 350 -320 BC BC. Hermitage Museum.
Round shields of the ancient Greeks (the eight-shaped shields of the Mycenaean era and the Dipylon shields in VO were described in the series of articles "Weapons of the Trojan War"), covered with sheet copper - the so-called Argive shields, were very beautiful. But the technology of their manufacture was closer to the technique of making wooden dishes. Based on archaeological finds, Peter Connolly concluded that its base was made of some kind of hard species, for example, oak, after which all the necessary parts were attached to the inside, and the nails that went out to the outside of the shield were bent and hammered into the tree. Then the shield was covered with thin bronze or bovine skin. At the same time, he points out that by the extent to which these nails are bent, one can judge that the wooden base of the Argive shield in the center was only 0.5 cm thick, so an additional reinforcing plate was often laid inside under the arm. According to Connolly, the weight of such a shield, which in fact resembled a very large bowl, was about 7 kg. That is, yes, this is a "board made of boards", but very thin. In addition, it was necessary to give it a convex shape, attach a flat side. All in all, it was a very labor intensive product. And, apparently, initially of greater thickness, and then, just like a stone bowl, it was processed until it acquired its convex shape and corresponding thickness.
Crater from Puglia. "Battle of the Greeks with the Oskans." Long Slip Master. 380 -365 years BC. Hermitage Museum.
But the first wooden multilayer shields, making the most of the features of wood, began to be made by the Celts and Romans. It is known that in the latter, oval shields borrowed from the Celts were first cut from the bottom and top, and then acquired a completely rectangular shape in the form of a curved ceramic tile plate. In addition to such shields used in the infantry, the Romans used flat oval shields, which served as a means of protecting riders, and then, already at the end of the Empire, large oval and round shields, which were used both in the infantry and in the cavalry.
Crater: "Warrior with an Argive Shield." Master Cassandra. 350 BC Hermitage Museum.
Archaeologists are in luck. In Dura Europos, an ancient city discovered on the territory of modern Syria, several ruins of houses and a palace, two temples and unique frescoes were found back in 1920. Now, unfortunately, Dura-Europos has been destroyed by religious fanatics from the "Islamic State" (prohibited in the Russian Federation). Nevertheless, some of the finds made in it were taken out at the end of the twentieth century to museums in France and the United States and therefore preserved in the Louvre and in the museum at Yale University. At Yale, there are three wooden painted Roman shields. On one shield, the figure of the god of war, Mars, is visible, and on the other, a scene of the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. The third is a popular theme from the Iliad. The shield murals were reconstructed by Herbert J. Gute of the Yale University Art Gallery.
Celtic shield. Rice. A. Shepsa
Interestingly, 24 complete or partially preserved wooden shields, a number of metal parts from them and 21 more umbons were found in Dura Europos. The five least damaged wooden shields were oval and slightly curved, and measured 1.07-1.18 m in height and 0.92-0.97 m in width. Their thickness is also small - 8-9 mm in the center, about 6 mm closer to the edge, and only 3-4 mm at the very edge. All these shields are assembled from poplar planks (12-15 planks) 8-12 mm thick, glued together along the entire length.
A shield depicting either the Roman emperor or the eastern warrior god. Reconstruction.
One of the shields found in Dura Europos was not painted, while some of the boards at the cut and elsewhere were painted pink for some reason. Other shields were extremely richly decorated. One shows a standing figure, depicted in the style of the Palmyrian gods, against a gray-green background. Two of the shields had red brims, with a wreath pattern and swirls of waves around the bumper hole. On the red field of one of the shields there is a scene from the Iliad, on the other, too, a very popular depiction of the Amazonomachy at that time. The back of the shield, depicting the Amazons, was painted blue and decorated with rosettes and red hearts, also circled in white.
A shield depicting the Amazonomachy before reconstruction.
The same shield after reconstruction. The hole for the umbon is surrounded by a laurel wreath. The shield shows a battle between the Greeks and the Amazons.
Shield with a picture of the plundering of Troy before the reconstruction of its obverse.
The same shield after reconstruction.
As always, in the West today there are masters who began to recreate replicas of these shields, and they tried to make them as closely as possible correspond to the original. This, in turn, made it possible to test them "in practice" and find out that these shields were convenient and provided their owners with a fairly high level of protection. In addition, it was possible to find out that the oval shields in question were not flat. And they were somewhat curved, although not very much.
Shield "from Dura-Europos" by master Holger Ratsdorf.
As for the curved rectangular Roman shields, only one copy of such a shield, found again in Dura Europos, has survived to us, and it dates back to the 3rd century. AD The shield is made using a very sophisticated technology. It is glued from plane planks about 2 mm thick, glued crosswise in three layers, so that the result is a curved piece of ordinary plywood. The handle was a thickening of the middle wooden strip. The shield was covered with leather on the outside, and on top of the leather was also covered with canvas. The edges of the shield were trimmed with strips of rawhide sewn to the wood. This shield is lighter and not as strong as two other shields found elsewhere. But they were almost twice as thick in the middle. Its painting indicates that it was most likely not a combat, but a ceremonial shield. He was never used in battle. However, reliefs are known showing us the Praetorians of the end of the 1st century. n. e., going to the parade with oval-shaped scutums.
Roman legionary with a scutum. The bronze fittings of the shield are clearly visible. Miniart figurine.
In the I-II centuries. n. NS. the edges of the rectangular scutum were reinforced with bronze fittings. And so they prove that their thickness along the edge was no more than 6 mm, although in the middle they had about a centimeter. Reconstructions of the shield from Dura Europos with the addition of bronze fittings and an iron umbon had a weight of about 5.5 kg. If in the middle the shield was thicker, its weight reached 7.5 kg.
The obverse of both Celtic and Roman shields was decorated with drawings. Moreover, they were quite large and were well-recognized symbols of the legion. Peter Connolly believes that in the II century. rectangular scutum is gradually going out of fashion, and by the middle of the 3rd century. it has already disappeared and has been replaced by the oval shield of the auxiliaries. At the same time, on several monuments you can see round shields, which are believed to have been the shields of the standard-bearers. Murals from a synagogue at Dura Europos in Syria depict hexagonal shields. Michael Simkins - British historian and reenactor - believes that since such shields are nowhere else, it is very possible that they were part of the equipment of the cataphract. Again, all the shields found in Dura Europos have the edge reinforced not with bronze, as usual, but with rawhide.
A convex rectangular shield found during excavations at Tower 19 at Dura Europos. III century. AD Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, Connecticut, USA. The device of the shield is shown.
Interestingly, it was customary for Roman legionnaires to wear shields in leather cases to protect them from the weather. Rice. A. Shepsa.
