Scutum/Rectangular shields 410ad to 510ad?

[PhilusEstilius]

It has been considered that the rectangular scutum used by Legionaries is a development from the republican shield where the top and bottom curves have been cut off.
Therefore if we take the measurements of the republican type shield from Fayum in Egypt that is 1-28 of a metre long by 63-5 cm wide, we have a shield that is around 49 inches long by almost 24 inches wide.
If we now take off about 6 to 8 inches from top and bottom of this to give two good flat edges we are now looking at a scutum that is much shorter than the Dura, infact a one that begins to look very much like what we see in most depictions given in Roman artwork including the T.C.
I think that most scutum were maybe only around 36 inch and not the 40 plus that most re-enactors use today which is far too unwieldy.

[Tim Edwards]

I am aware that we are going off at a tangent (sorry Mike!), so this will be my final post on this thread.

I am still arguing against the width of the Dura Europos scutum being typical for the Early Imperial era. (though I am not arguing that it is a parade item).

On making balanced assessments of the evidence, here are the board widths of the some of the surviving boards or boards estimated from covers:

Fayum: 63.5cm
Doncaster: 64cm
Vindonissa: 67cm
Caerleon: 67cm
Oberaden: 65cm
Valkenburg 1: 42cm
Valkenburg 2: 55cm
Mainz: 40cm
(All from Carol van Driel Murray's 'Dead Men's Shoes')

Dura Europos: 86cm

Hence much wider than earlier examples.

[mcbishop]

On making balanced assessments of the evidence, here are the board widths of the some of the surviving boards or boards estimated from covers:

Fayum: 63.5cm
Doncaster: 64cm
Vindonissa: 67cm
Caerleon: 67cm
Oberaden: 65cm
Valkenburg 1: 42cm
Valkenburg 2: 55cm
Mainz: 40cm
(All from Carol van Driel Murray's 'Dead Men's Shoes')

Dura Europos: 86cm

Hence much wider than earlier examples.

No it is not. The width of the shield board may be 0.86m rolled out flat, but when excavated the chord (i.e. the actual space taken up by the board) was 0.66m (James 2004, 182) - so if the above were all flat (and of course with a shield cover you can't tell) it would match fairly well.

As for Brian's persistence with the cut-off notion, that is just an assumption, not a proven fact (unless anybody can cite a ancient source that says it). The Dura board is 1.06m high, the Kasr al-Harit one 1.28m, so whilst it suggests diminution in size between the two there has to be allowance for variation in size in geographically diverse pre-industrial manufacture and the fact that soldiers will tend to get what they want. Since these remain the only two complete curved shields we cannot generalise from the particular, any more than we can argue that sculptural representations of varying quality are any more than just vaguely indicative of original shield size.

Back to the point of the thread, it strikes me that it would be more useful to look at contemporary equipment used by likely opponents, particularly those with a Germanic heritage, where Romanising trends are seen but no opting for a curved rectangular shield that I am aware of. Saxons seemed quite happy forming shield walls without the benefit of it, so why should late Romans need or want it (other than some sort of Vegetian/DRB hankering after a notional past)? I can just imagine the reaction of the modern British army if they were re-issued with Brown Besses... ;-) )

Mike Bishop

James, S.T. 2004: Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final Report vol.VII. The Arms and Armour, and Other Military Equipment, London

[Robert Vermaat]

Back to the point of the thread, it strikes me that it would be more useful to look at contemporary equipment used by likely opponents, particularly those with a Germanic heritage, where Romanising trends are seen but no opting for a curved rectangular shield that I am aware of. Saxons seemed quite happy forming shield walls without the benefit of it, so why should late Romans need or want it (other than some sort of Vegetian/DRB hankering after a notional past)? I can just imagine the reaction of the modern British army if they were re-issued with Brown Besses... ;-) )

Well, then my immediate question would be: how do we know that no curved shields existed in Germanic areas during this period?

[Dan Howard]

I still say yet again that the size of the earlier curved scutum still yet needs to be discussed, for the idea of 40 plus inches or so with a massive wrap around just makes it too unwieldy in any type of battle.

These shields seem common in bronze age and early iron age shield wall formations.

[jho]

I have recently been reading the excavation reports from Illerup Adal (late 2nd/ early 3rd century). The shields found there are relatively large and round. They are all made of relatively thin wooden planks glued side to side. They are noticeably thinner and wider than shields from earlier periods (which tended to be of oblong form). They also lack the wide metal grip reinforcement bars present on earlier shields. The author speculates that these shields would have been laminated (not sure if this is the correct term) with fresh hide which shrinks and becomes transparent when dried and gives stability to the whole shield. The Dura shields are also made of planks in much the same way.

This also appears to be the period where use of the oval shield in the Roman army became more widespread. One could speculate whether this technological advance (lamination) allowed for the manufacture of shields of substantial width from simple planks without needing the more complex plywood structure of earlier Roman shields. Maybe lamination is also more difficult on rectangular shields than on rounded ones? The problem is that I have not idea about the technological issues involved. It would be interesting to hear from people who actually have experience building these shields.

[garrelt]

Mike

Interesting link.
The last 2 pictures in your post are Russian riot police.
When I saw them on TV executing there shieldwall, my thoughts were: perfectly executed, who trained them.

Big rectangular shields are good for static defense, think about the medieval pavisse.

Back to topic.
Iconographical evidence shows no big rectangular shields for this period.
archaeological evidence, at least for my region, shows mostly medium size 50 to 70 cm diameter round shields.
Looking at iconographical evidence where the shield rest on the ground and the person depicted rests his bent arm on the rim of the shield, you can easily say that this shield has a hight between 90/110 cm or the same size in diameter.
This taken that the average height of a person would be around 1.70 mtr.

For the surviving Illerup Adal shields.
These are 95/100 cm in diameter.
The center part around the umbo is 13mm thick.
The rim is 4 to 6 mm thick
The boards are covered with fabric.
The rimes have brass/bronze edging.

[Crispvs]

Further to Mike's comments about the miners' strikes, I was living in New Zealand during the 1981 Springbok Tour, which, in many ways was much worse than the actions over the miners' strikes. Whilst I have many newspaper cuttings in a scrapbook in New Zealand, the selection available on the web is somewhat limited. Hence I could not find any examples of the (at the time) ubiquitous images of police with riot shields and batons.
However, everywhere we were seeing police in riot gear with helmets, 'scutum' type shields and long batons. It wasn't too long before protesters started turning up en mass at demonstrations in motorcycle helmets and homemade body armour and carrying their own large plywood riot shields, batons and bags of empty bottles and molotov cocktails. Not too long after that, protest groups started copying police riot tactics too. All of these shields and batons proved capable of being handled in fights and scuffles.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... s%3Disch:1

http://www.teara.govt.nz/files/p1985atl.jpg

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... s%3Disch:1

http://www.nzonscreen.com/content/image ... 52x402.jpg

Sorry if this is a little OT.


Crispvs

[Paullus Scipio]

OK, better but still not similar. Modern riot shields are mainly used as a means to protect against misssiles.
I bet the officer in the second picture, for instance, would have wished for a good umbo - this blow may have broken his arm.
True, police can use these shields offensively, but these (flat) shields were not designed for that, just for static defence.
I think you'll find that current theories on ancient battles incline to the view that they were often largely a lot of gesticulating, followed by exchanges of missiles, with occasional flurries of close combat (often over several hours), before, upon sensing a 'wavering', one side delivered a decisive charge. ( a rash generalisation, I know, but bear with me). I believe we are beginning to realise that 'human mass combat', whether primitive stone age cultures in New Guinea, or modern riots, or ancient/mediaeval battle have more similarities than most realise - after all, the same psychology is at work. Not surprising therefore that Rome and Modern Police Forces both came up with the same/similar 'optimum' solution - primary defence, body shield and helmet ( head wounds are by far the most common cause of fatal injury in battle/riot), backed up by body armour and sometimes greaves as secondary defence.....and we may suspect that, were it not for 'P.C. reasons about aggressiveness' of police, they would go into action with missile weapons ( slings, martiobarbuli/plumbata, heavy throwing weapons/pila/spicula etc to counter the monopoly rioters enjoy currently in missile weapons ... hock: hock: :lol: :lol:

Roman rectangular shields were not designed for a static defensive role, they were used to knock the opponent about before the latter was stabbed with the gladius. That it could also be used in a testudo role was a design plus, but I doubt that it was designed for that. But I'm no expert there.

As I opined above, while the scuta/oval body shield was doubtless a 'dual-purpose'offensive/defensive weapon, in many instances the carriers spent many hours avoiding missiles etc, and perhaps minutes in hand-to-hand combat

I agree absolutely that the change from rectangular to oval/round had to do with changes in fighting style. For myself, i see two main changes:
one, the use of the lance as main battle weapon, which is better deployed over an oval/round shield than over a rectangular one (which would become unbalanced),
two, because of the development in fighting involving closed shield formations of the opponent (Roman or otherwise) which would favour the longer spatha over the shorter gladius or semispatha, resulting in an overarm slashing technique that is also facilitated by an oval shield instead of a rectangular one.

I think you are likely right here - an oval body-shield with no corners offers certain improvements in effectiveness.... and continues the trend to lightness, but while more effective generally, the ability to form the traditional 'testudo' and shieldwall as displayed by the modern Police is degraded somewhat - but IMHO these are simply a change of emphasis in what is still essentially a 'body-shield' which performs a particular function, so I tend to agree with Mike...

All speculation of course, which goes almost without saying. :|
Well, perhaps not entirely speculation.... :wink: :wink: :lol: