05-29-2010, 02:05 PM
It is not good practice to assume that all the evidence is a fluke, or that imagination bears more weight than historical evidence. I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you in particular, this is a pretty common thing! But we should always go with the evidence at hand, whenever possible, being ready to change our tunes when new evidence emerges.
In this case, EVERY depiction of a hoplite shield shows it as domed or dished. There is some variation on the depth and cross-section, and there is variation on the angle of the rim. But there is never any suggestion that they could have been flat. Likewise, all surviving examples and fragments show the same thing. We don't have too many whole bronze faces, but they're all dished. There are also a number of rim pieces, generally from sloped rims (if there's enough metal to tell!). Much of this material is not from graves at all, but from places like Olympia where captured weaponry was dedicated at the temple (and later dumped down wells when they ran out of space!). Finally, I believe there are literary descriptions of "hollow" shields and such. That means that the pictoral, archeological, and literary evidence are all in agreement, and it don't get no better than that!
If you want to add "practical" arguments to that, a flat shield of that size will be unmanageable with the usual porpax (armband) and grip. On a dished shield, most of the weight is *behind* the arm, making it lean back nicely into the shoulder, but on a flat shield all the weight will be *in front* of the arm, making it tip awkwardly away from the hoplite (known as "tabling"). You'd spend all your strength fighting your own shield.
Likewise, the vast majority of depictions of early medieval shields clearly show them as domed. I don't know why people insist on saying such things are "highly stylized", since the shape, boss, handle arrangement, and other details are frequently shown with surprising detail, details which match the archeological record quite closely. It's true that the wood rarely survives, but surviving bosses, handles, and reinforcements are often made to fit a convex board. Sutton Hoo is a dramatic rarity, a royal grave with a number of imported items, but there are hundreds of other finds of nice plain shield bosses and weapons, all decently made. They match the artwork. Why assume that all these obviously skilled artists and blacksmiths were lying or incompetent, particularly when the details are so consistent?
Finally, we simply can't assume that "the usual" stuff was significantly different from that shown by ALL our evidence, nor that poorer warriors or unskilled craftsmen would slap together something to "make do". If you could not afford a shield, then no culture that I know of would require you to own one (or they would issue it at state expense). If you called yourself a shield maker, but could not make them properly, you would starve from lack of business. And we constantly see ancient people making an item in a particular way, often seeming to us to be unnecessarily complicated, simply because they felt that was the proper way to do it! OR possibly because there was something about that method of construction which served a purpose that we have yet to ascertain. And of all the cultures I've studied over the years, Classical Greece is the all-time best (or worst?) for making EVERYthing more complicated than it needs to be!
Hoplite shields were dished, period. If you have any *evidence* to the contrary, we'd love to see it!
Khairete,
Matthew
In this case, EVERY depiction of a hoplite shield shows it as domed or dished. There is some variation on the depth and cross-section, and there is variation on the angle of the rim. But there is never any suggestion that they could have been flat. Likewise, all surviving examples and fragments show the same thing. We don't have too many whole bronze faces, but they're all dished. There are also a number of rim pieces, generally from sloped rims (if there's enough metal to tell!). Much of this material is not from graves at all, but from places like Olympia where captured weaponry was dedicated at the temple (and later dumped down wells when they ran out of space!). Finally, I believe there are literary descriptions of "hollow" shields and such. That means that the pictoral, archeological, and literary evidence are all in agreement, and it don't get no better than that!
If you want to add "practical" arguments to that, a flat shield of that size will be unmanageable with the usual porpax (armband) and grip. On a dished shield, most of the weight is *behind* the arm, making it lean back nicely into the shoulder, but on a flat shield all the weight will be *in front* of the arm, making it tip awkwardly away from the hoplite (known as "tabling"). You'd spend all your strength fighting your own shield.
Likewise, the vast majority of depictions of early medieval shields clearly show them as domed. I don't know why people insist on saying such things are "highly stylized", since the shape, boss, handle arrangement, and other details are frequently shown with surprising detail, details which match the archeological record quite closely. It's true that the wood rarely survives, but surviving bosses, handles, and reinforcements are often made to fit a convex board. Sutton Hoo is a dramatic rarity, a royal grave with a number of imported items, but there are hundreds of other finds of nice plain shield bosses and weapons, all decently made. They match the artwork. Why assume that all these obviously skilled artists and blacksmiths were lying or incompetent, particularly when the details are so consistent?
Finally, we simply can't assume that "the usual" stuff was significantly different from that shown by ALL our evidence, nor that poorer warriors or unskilled craftsmen would slap together something to "make do". If you could not afford a shield, then no culture that I know of would require you to own one (or they would issue it at state expense). If you called yourself a shield maker, but could not make them properly, you would starve from lack of business. And we constantly see ancient people making an item in a particular way, often seeming to us to be unnecessarily complicated, simply because they felt that was the proper way to do it! OR possibly because there was something about that method of construction which served a purpose that we have yet to ascertain. And of all the cultures I've studied over the years, Classical Greece is the all-time best (or worst?) for making EVERYthing more complicated than it needs to be!
Hoplite shields were dished, period. If you have any *evidence* to the contrary, we'd love to see it!
Khairete,
Matthew
Matthew Amt (Quintus)
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
