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+--- Thread: The Pelte from Pergamon (/showthread.php?tid=13304)
The Pelte from Pergamon - MeinPanzer - 08-02-2008
During the excavations at Pergamon at the end of the 19th century, the remains of a bronze shield were found in Arsenal III on the acropolis of the famous Hellenistic city. This find is, for some peculiar reason, often forgotten, but its most active proponent, Peter Connolly, has reproduced it in many sources, including Greece and Rome at War. This information is from Akos von Szalay and Erich Boehringer, Altertümer von Pergamon X: Die Hellenistischen Arsenale (Berlin and Leipzig: Verlag con Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1937).
The details of this find are incredibly valuable. The shield is 65-67 cm in diameter, with its bronze covering being 0.4 mm thick. The shield is rimless with its cover being dagged so that it has triangular teeth which were then bent back to secure the cover to its backing. The most interesting detail of this find is that traces of many layers of papyri were found on the inside of the shield, presumably between its wooden backing and the bronze cover. This suggests that, like with cartonnage in Egypt, old papyri made into papier mache was used as padding in shields.
Has anybody followed this design with papyri when reconstructing Hellenistic shields? If not, it would be an interesting touch for Hellenistic reenactors to try out in the future to test its shock absorbing capabilities.
Re: The Pelte from Pergamon - barcid - 05-11-2009
I missed this thread thanks for posting it up cheers dave 8)