Dura Europos.. The Missing Umbo Conundrum

[Hibernicus]

I had a thought... apparently a number of the scutums found in the undermining at Dura Europas were missing their umbos.. "That's odd," I thought. "Perhaps misplaced during excavations?" I thought some more.

Aha! They were deliberately removed for combat underground... space it tight, overhead room is limited... lighting... probably nonexistent or nearly so... you'd be fighting blindly or against dim targets that were poorly backlit... defending yrouself would be as problematic as attacking someone.... a sword or spear could be thrust through the hand grip opening.... stabbing forward in the dark as you inched forward...

maybe....

[Matthew Amt]

Hmmm, I doubt it! Sounds like a good way to lose fingers. If the tunnel is so small that your shield fills it without enough space at one edge to thrust a sword, then there wouldn't have been that many guys in it.

Plus, those shields without bosses weren't found in the tunnel. There may even have been a boss or two found in the tunnel itself, though I don't recall exactly.

Seems more likely the shields were stacked in a workshop or storeroom, either unfinished or old and half-disassembled.

Matthew

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Umbos are maded of a relative thin plate of metal, so probably are very exposed to a total corrosion and so could have been dissapered.

At excavations, is common to find thin sheet of copperalloys fittings, but is very strange to find thin iron things.

[aitor iriarte]

Quoting from my memories (OK, I should go, fetch that stair, climb to the shelf, take the book, open it and read the paragraphs in question... but not now, please! ) of James' book, the bossless shield-boards were stored inside a tower room or discarded into the rubble reinforcing the city wall's inner side.
The shields discovered inside the mine were almost totally shattered by the collapse of the tunnel and several bosses were recovered from among the remains.

Aitor

[Crispvs]

Some years ago I read the siege mines section of the final report on the excavations at Dura, which included a number of photographs and drawings. The diagram of the positions of the bodies in the mine showed that most had probably been wounded rather than killed outright and had retreated in small groups into whatever hollows they could find in the sides of their countermine (which had presumably been sealed from the city side in a moment of panic, trapping them inside), probably to try to escape the smoke from the fire the Persians were using to collapse the main siege mine under towe 19. Most of the groups of bodies seem to have had shield bosses lying on top of them and the assumption must be that they tried to protect themselves from the heat and smoke by covering themselves with their shields. As far as I know nothing more was found of their shields. They may have been burnt.
Some of the extant shields, including the scuta, come from the lower room in tower 19 (which was partially collapsed by this same mine), which appears to have doubled as a three story storage cupboard and an artillery platform. I am not sure where the remaining shields were found. Someone with Simon James' book may know.

Crispvs

[Matt Lukes]

Have you tried holding a scutum without an umbo and pointing a sharp-edged sword through the hole above your hand? Sounds like a recipe for slicing your own hand off to me, ESPECIALLY in a very enclosed area...

[Crispvs]

Hib,

What the soldiers appear to have removed to allow them to fight in the small space of the counter mine were their helmets. Sufficient bosses survived with the bodies in the mine to show that their shields certainly had umbos. However, the only helmet found in the mine was that of the dead Persian officer.
As the soldiers at Dura appear to have been equipped with helmets with very deep neck guards, it would have been almost impossible for them to have moved along the counter mine, with its low ceiling, still wearing their helmets and at the same time being able to raise their heads enough to see anything, as they would have to have bent forward somewhat to avoind hitting their heads on the ceiling of the hastily dug mine.
Therefore it appears that they decided to sacrifice protection in favour of the ability to look ahead of themselves rather than at the ground. Their shields would not have prevented them from seeing ahead of themselves so they were able to retain these.

What I find to be the hardest thing to understand about the siege mines at Dura is why, having obviously beaten back the trapped, wounded Romans, the Persians walled off the counter mine from the siege mine proper without first removing the body of their own officer, or his mail shirt, expensive sword or helmet for that matter. The wall was obviously built to concentrate the fire under tower 19 and was obviously done in great haste (perhaps expecting the Romans to re-open the counter mine and send fresh soldiers in), by surely there must have been time to drag the body out before they spent half an hour or so building the little makeshift wall, especially since he was lying only about three feet away!

Crispvs

[Andy De Cusati]

I was born and raised in New Haven, Conn. where Yale University is. I remember seeing the Dura painted scutum and being amazed. I was not that interested in Roman history then. Now I live in 6 hours away in Penn. and am very interested! Are any of the Dura artifacts pictured on line? If so where?

Thanks,

Andy De Cusati