Dura shields were parade shields?

[San Fratis]

Ave,

This is my first post but I have been scrounging for info here for a couple of weeks. And let me say that you guys have amassed an incredible amount of info here.

My main area of interest is the withdrawal of Rome from Britain. Primarily lately I have been combing over the threads concerning oval vs. circle and flat vs. curved vs. domed/dished.

That being the case one thing that struck me as odd were the thickness of the Dura shield finds. "Average is 1.05m high by 0.9m wide. Board thickness at centre under the boss was 9mm, tapering down to 3-5mm at the edges." Seems mighty thin for a front line shield. I have shot arrows at plenty of plywood targets and less than a 1/4 inch at the edges isn't going to stop much. I have not taken a period sword to 1/4 inch ply but a blunt object (hammer/baseball bat) seems to cause massive damage. I know that the leather facing would help somewhat but still.

Is it possible that the Dura finds were simply parade shields. When you consider the level of art work on the one that seems more likely. If they were combat shields we could expect to see some patch work painting at least and if they were completely serviceable shields I do not see the Romans or the army they faced leaving them behind.

Well, any thoughts are welcome.

[Virilis]

Is it possible that the measurements indicate only the current state of the shields and they might have been thicker originally? Just my two denarii on this :wink: ...

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Dura Shields were found with the bodies of the roman soldiers into a countermine who collapses and catch the romans inside. So... Why do you want to carry a parade shield inside a mine?

In the other hand, all metal binding of shields founded are 9 mm or less. It's not the same wood and plywood, and hardened leather is very strong.

[Dan Howard]

There are hundreds of different types of shield all over the world that are this light or even lighter and they were all used in combat.

[Virilis]

If I remember correctly the shields were not found in the countermine but from a collapsed tower / storageroom?

[Dan Howard]

According to James there were fragments of up to fifty different shields. Some were more complete than others. Some were made of planks, some were plywood, and three were made of wooden sticks woven through rawhide. They were found all over the place: in various towers, at the gates, in the temple, and in the counter mine. They were so varied that trying to work out an "average" size and thickness is meaningless.

[San Fratis]

Something that I have thought of going off Virilis's comment is the average shrinkage of wood.

Assuming that the Romans did not oven dry timbers then most woods used had maybe 20%-15% moisture content left. Depending on the wood used that could account for up to 1%-3% volume loss of a green log.
If spending close to 2000 years in a hot and dry enviroment is at least equal to oven drying then the wood could be down to only chemically bonded water or somewhere between 3%-8% water volume from green, but this translates into 3%-12% shrinkage in the wood.

On top of this is weight compression of the layers of sand and stone then another 1%-3% of shrinkage is likely. If the extremes are taken then 15% shrinkage is not hard to achieve. And the numbers I used are just the high-lows of American woods, not specifically the native woods the Romans used. And I do not doubt that 30% shrinkage is even likely.

So 9mm at the center would become 10.35mm and 3mm-5mm at the edge becomes 3.45mm-5.75mm

If anyone has any data on the effects of 2000 years in a desert has on wood please let me know.