Mycenaean Warriors

[Dan Howard]

I think Mary was in my Mykenaian honours class. She was interested in Mykenaian helmets back then (4 years ago?). I had no idea that she was still following this line of study.

[hoplite14gr]

Dan is right that Homer talking of specific personalities does not describe 8-shaped shields. But Homer also does not describe the common infantry in as much detail as the heroic personalities.
It is possibly the pike blocks had sakkos or 8-shaped shilds like the ones on the Thera frescko and the Palaces fresckoes.
Linear B tablets of Pylos and Crete prove that the state was arming the troops. So pike, big shield, helmet and dagger are very cheap way to arm the militia. Noble of cource would have the various armor specimens found in excavations.
Kind regards
Stefanos

[Jason Hoffman]

When it comes to the shields in Homer, I will certainly defer to Dan this really is his specialist area.

When quoting from ancient texts to add to a debate, you really must go back to the original texts in original language. Many words are still open to debate and some transaltions can be rather dubious.

Heres one for example the word SPOLA has been accepted as a late type of armour but i really have my doubts about this. It only shows up three times in the ancient texts i have searched, and twice it is concerning a thing of little value, dosent sound like armour to me.

[hoplite14gr]

Jason, there is heavy speculation on this word.
There are people that claim it is the "shield apron" of archaic hoplites.
The word appears mostly on Xenophon.
My opinion is that it is a type of leather jerkin worn under armor or the minimum protection that the Ekdromoi have.
If you see the image on the following link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/megistias ... tashmaxon/
The are people who speculate that the hoplite who carries his dead comraid is not wearing chiton but the "spollas".
Kind regards

[Anonymous]

Some of the shields on the models look like a cross between the dipylon type and the figure-of-eight. If I remember rightly, the figure-of-eight is the earlier and more likely to have featured in the Trojan wars, while the dipylon would have been more the size of the Argive aspis, and of that (Classical) period, or just before.

There are no "figure-8" shields in the Iliad. There are no "tower" shields in the Iliad. Every single shield described in any detail by Homer is circular.

Really? I had forgotten that, it being, as I mentioned previously, more than thirty years since I last read it. But it's not relevant, Dan, because Homer, as we know, didn't describe the weapons and armour of the Trojan War accurately, possibly on account of his living some four hundred years later.

[john m roberts]

If nothing else, we have poetic license at work here. A "man height" circular shield? If it's circular, it would have to be the same width as height. So a shield six feet high would be six feet wide. I know from experience that it's difficult to fight around a shield 3 feet wide. An orangutan couldn't reach around a 6-foot shield to strike. You might be able to stab over one with a spear, but Hector fights with the sword, too, not to mention rocks. Oval makes more sense and it's only a slight variation to go from oval to figure-8 or diplyon.

[hoplite14gr]

Dan spoke of the vase of Aristothonos in the Bronze age forum.
Ther is a picture posted there.
It is Archaic (Homers Era) and shows troops with large circular shields.
But if the were in reality so big then the were not of wood like the Etruskan survivng hoplon or the Spartan hoplon exibited in the Acropolis Meuseum.
Leather or skins is the more plausible interpetation.
Kind regards

[Paullus]

That was an interesting debate I still believe that shield is a figure-8s. It looks just like the votive figure-8s from the side.

I too have serious problems considering the use of a 5 to 6 foot circular shield. It would be impossible to fight around. In the end some one is just going to have to build one and see what can be done with it.

[Anonymous]

I don't think the evidence is strong enough to justify wasting the kind of time it takes to build and test a re-construction shield. I thought Dan wrote that Homer refers to it being circular and man-height in different places. If so, perhaps he had more than one type. Alternatively, Homer is simply being inconsistent, a human failing common to many authors (Doh!). I've heard other shields described as man-height when the evidence of finds shows only shields big enough to cover the torso and some, or most, of the legs (i.e., as big as an aspis or a legionary scutum). It seems as if this may be what "man-high" meant to the writers.

A lot of people have suggested that the "tower" and, possibly, figure-eight and scutum shields may have been designed to be grounded and treated as portable walls. Now that's worthy of investigation.

[Dan Howard]

Mr Allen,

Might I suggest that you actually read the Iliad before blithely dismissing three years of my life. The full-height shield that I speak of is specifically described as touching the neck and the ankles when slung on the back [6.117]. It is hardly open to misinterpretation. There is absolutely nothing in the Iliad to suggest that the Figure-8 shield was in use during the events described by Homer and very little in the archaeological record to suggest that the figure-8 shield was in use either in the 11th century BC or later during the alleged time of Homer's life. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the full height shield attributed to Hektor is the Figure-8 typology. It could be the so-called "tower" shield. It could be a rectangular shield. It could be the oval shield on the Dodwell pyxis. It could be an oval shield with scallops cut out of it. It could be the shield described by Tyrtaeus that covers "thighs, shins, breast, and shoulders." [XI.23] There is also evidence for full-height circular shields both in the Aegean record and in other cultures. The North American Indians, for example, made extensive use of full-height circular (not oval) shields and their method of warfare is very similar to that described by Homer. In the Aegean there is a full-height circular shield on a seal found on Cyprus and the vase of Aristonthos might also be depicting full-height circular shields.

Give me one reason why the "neck to ankle" shield described by Homer was the Figure-8 typology and not any of the others in the archaeological record.

[Dan Howard]

For a person standing around 5'9" a circular shield that covers from the "neck to the ankles" would need to be about 4.3 feet in diameter. Not the 5-6 feet people roundly use to criticise such speculation.

[john m roberts]

"Neck to ankles" and "man height" are two different things. The difference is about a foot on most people, and a foot means a lot when you're speaking of shields and weapons. In any case, I spoke of the unlikelihood of such a shield being perfectly circular. Even a 4-foot circular shield is extremely difficult to fight around.

[Dan Howard]

So how do the North Americans manage it?

http://s8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_C ... id=4498999

There are dozens of similar shields on American rock paintings and three rawhide shields of a similar size were found by Pectol in 1923.

In addition, Colin Taylor in Native American Weapons, (University of Oklahoma Press, 2001) quotes a native description of warfare in which the bearers of large circular shields protect companions in a manner very similar to that described by both Homer and Tyrtaeus.

FWIW I have never used the phrase "man-height". I use "full-height" which I define as covering "chin to shin" or "neck to ankles" as described by Homer.

[Dan Howard]

That was an interesting debate I still believe that shield is a figure-8s. It looks just like the votive figure-8s from the side.

This is the image on the Aristonthos Krater.
http://s8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_C ... id=3931530
I'd like to know how anyone could interpret these three shields as "figure-8"

[Dan Howard]

But it's not relevant, Dan, because Homer, as we know, didn't describe the weapons and armour of the Trojan War accurately, possibly on account of his living some four hundred years later.

Maybe you could explain why items such as the boar's tusk helm, the lion hunt dagger and the cup of Nestor have been confirmed in the Archaeological record if Homer didn't know what he was talking about? Every year more and more things described by Homer are confirmed in the archaeological record. Like many others, you seem to be picking the bits out of the Iliad that suit your agenda and ignoring anything that doesn't. Homer described full-height circular shields. There is iconographical evidence for full-height circular shields in the Aegean during the time in question and even later. North American natives fought effectively with full-height circular shields in a manner similar to that described by Homer. All that remains is to dig one up from the ground.