making an aspis

[Paullus Scipio]

Just some minor points by way of 'tidying up' ;
Paul B wrote:-

The taper at the rim does not act like sloped armor for it is too severe and of limited extent.

I disagree. The angle of presentation when in use of this part of the shield, must necessarily extend the thickness a weapon must penetrate, thereby allowing it to be thinner in construction, but still present the same effective thickness to a weapon.

Make the guesstimate 2.5 cm and you can explain the discrepancy as I said before. I put as much faith in his "center of bowl" designation as I do in the superfluous "no" when it comes to glue.

.....it is not necessary to so radically 'alter' Dr J's words to achieve reconciliation of the various reports...I think 'centre of the bowl' is plain enough. Nor does a 'typo' imply 'translation problems'...despite Dr J's name it is equally, if not more, likely that the report was written in English.

but the profile would seem to be since Blyth drew it and sekunda redrew it from that diagram.

...I take it, since you don't have access to Blyth's original report, that it is given as a reference/bibliography by Sekunda?

It is odd that Jeromonides did not mention the thickness of the inner arch- which you were forced to guess at

...yes, with hindsight, but if you look at the photos, it is easy to imagine that it might be missed.

and we both agree had to be more than the rest of the shield reguardless of the nature of the taper.

.....yes, we do agree - because it is necessary to reconcile the different descriptions.
Were one to take Dr J's description at face value, since he omits mention of the thickened 'shoulder', one might assume a uniform 2.0/2.5 - 1.9 cm thickness for the face of the shield except where it meets the rim (1.1 cm), but I agree the latter is extremely unlikely in view of Blyth's later, fuller, report. D