Tyne sheild Boss

[PhilusEstilius]

Adrian

There is a lot there in what you show and I have an original laying around in one of my collection boxes, the one I have has snapped just at the hole and I've considered for some time now that this is what it was for.

Infact I have fitted a shield boss or two in the distant past by this method and have even used flat large washers and home made type split pins, when made tight with a washer one can even prevent rattle and the split pins only need to be just opened at their legs to prevent them coming out.

I have also put rings on the back of phalerae and also again used washers with slit pins as indeed some originals were fitted.

[Tarbicus]

Jim.

Is that umbo you have a circular one or rectangular as for a scutum, is it a plain one or does it have decoration

Here's a photo, Brian: http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i311/ ... boss1a.jpg

[PhilusEstilius]

Jim.

Thank you for showing that boss tremendous what is also interesting it still has a stud like those shown by Adrian or is it a rivet, what I also notice and I may be wrong but does it have a rolled edge behind that flange for it all looks so delicate.
I must also ask if is it just me or are the four holes that have held it to a shield square in shape.

[Tarbicus]

what is also interesting it still has a stud like those shown by Adrian or is it a rivet,

It's a nail, clenched over. Similar in X-section to a large upholstery nail/pin.

what I also notice and I may be wrong but does it have a rolled edge behind that flange for it all looks so delicate.

Rolled edge for sure.

I must also ask if is it just me or are the four holes that have held it to a shield square in shape.

You know, I'm not completely certain, but if I had to make a choice then I'd say yes, four nails in a square pattern.

And yes, it's incredibly delicate, and I'm afraid to hold it. Very thin metal.

[PhilusEstilius]

Where you say that the nail/pin is similar to a large upholstery type would that be of square cross section shank, why I ask is that after looking again at the picture you show there is at the ten-o-clock position on the flange a hole that gives appearence of having been square and also another at the four-o-clock.
The other hole opposite to the dome head nail/pin has had damage to it where the flange edge has been pushed over it a bit, it was of course from this seven or eight-o-clock position that I began to go around the edge anti-clockwise to determine that it had a rolled edge.
I have done this kind of thing of rolled edges on other objects myself to give greater strength to things, then as you say it is very delicate so it looks like this was done to make the flange that little bit stronger.
It does make one wonder just how it was used on a shield for I'm sure it would not have taken much of a blow to have completely destroyed it, might we then begin to think along the lines of removable parade items. This begins to open up a new line of thought about the infantry also having parade kit similar to the cavalry soldier.

[mcbishop]

It does make one wonder just how it was used on a shield for I'm sure it would not have taken much of a blow to have completely destroyed it, might we then begin to think along the lines of removable parade items. This begins to open up a new line of thought about the infantry also having parade kit similar to the cavalry soldier.

The evolution of the 'parade' shield boss continues apace from highly decorated into undecorated and very thin! There is an explanation for these seemingly impractical items and that is lamination: the thin copper-alloy boss is an outer skin for another one underneath. Sounds daft? I would have said so until I saw one of the sets of scale armour from the Carlisle Millennium site (not the famous one with neatly shaped scales, mostly ferrous but some of copper alloy) but one with only crude shaping attempted and which had additional thin (0.5mm) copper-alloy scales attached over the front of some (can't tell if it was all, originally) of the ferrous (1mm-thick) scales. No attempt was made to fasten the copper-alloy facings to the ferrous scale other than the usual wires you would expect of semi-rigid scale armour, so they would have rattled around loosely on the front (and of course been an instant cause of bimetallic electrolytic corrosion, since you could not take the things off to clean them or reach underneath them very effectively.

This chunk of scale is reminiscent of the alternately tinned scales of the Ham Hill armour, a measure that was decorative rather than practical - incidentally another of the sets of scale from Carlisle, still wrapped around a breastplate, alternated one complete copper-alloy scale with every three ferrous, so again a purely decorative effect. So putting a copper-alloy facing over an underlying ferrous boss would not be surprising and can explain such thin bosses without any recourse to 'parade' armour.

Mike Bishop

[PhilusEstilius]

Mike.
That is a very valid point that you make ( not daft ) for indeed there are many other items that are skinned, would be most interesting where Jim might be able to give some kind of provenance for this.
Where you have mentioned that the "parade boss theory" is an old one and that evidence may be lacking, I don't think that we should just give up and shelve the idea of such a subject. In the past I have also looked at what Adrian has put forward and considered that the removable type fixing stud may be a method for such interchange of a shield boss for they look to be so much more than just a crude bent nail.