RomanArmyTalk
Round vs Oval - Printable Version

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Round vs Oval - Franklin - 11-28-2006

Quick question:

The Notitia Dignitatum is ascribed to roughly 400AD and depicts strictly round shields, yet most 5thC reenactors run around with ovals.

What gives?

Re: Round vs Oval - aitor iriarte - 11-28-2006

Not us... Tongue
The shield shape debate is the closest parallel on Late Period to the Early Imperial debate on tunic colours... :roll:

Aitor :lol:

Re: Round vs Oval - Franklin - 11-28-2006

So your guys all sport rounds?

Re: Round vs Oval - aitor iriarte - 11-28-2006

Not all, just Cohors Prima Gallica! :wink:

[Image: Foulkon-2.jpg]

BTW, they should be dished too, but we'd need a lot of maoney for that... :oops:

Aitor

Re: Round vs Oval - Franklin - 11-28-2006

Patience, Aitor, I'm working on it. :wink:

And hopefully it shouldn't be vastly more expensive, just more labor intensive. But then, ANYthing would be more difficult compared to just cutting out a piece of store-bought ply! I think that's what's made us spoiled.

Re: Round vs Oval - aitor iriarte - 11-28-2006

Waiting eagerly for your news then, Franklin! Big Grin

Aitor

Re: Round vs Oval - Franklin - 11-28-2006

Are there any oval finds dated later than the Dura?

Re: Round vs Oval - aitor iriarte - 11-28-2006

No, there aren't; but real finds are so scarce as to make this 'fact' totally irrelevant... Sad

Aitor

Re: Round vs Oval - Hibernicus - 11-28-2006

Aitor

Were they wood strips? If so could be a fun project.

Re: Round vs Oval - Franklin - 11-28-2006

Also, have you come across any evidence that planks were beveled/jointed to fit snug with each other? Or were they simply flat/butted against each other.

I may have already asked you this. Apologies if I have.

Re: Round vs Oval - Robert Vermaat - 11-29-2006

Quote:Not all, just Cohors Prima Gallica! :wink:
Don't be sad, you're not alone - in fact many Late Roman groups have round flat scuta. How about the Minervii and I Minerva in Germany?

Re: Round vs Oval - TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS - 11-29-2006

And the Primani... Big Grin

Valete,

Re: Round vs Oval - Hibernicus - 11-29-2006

How were the originals you are replicating made?
Were they dished?

I have some strips aching to be glued up and pressed into a dished round or oval


Hibernici

Re: Round vs Oval - aitor iriarte - 11-29-2006

Sorry Sean,
I haven't forgotten about you, I have simply had no time to check my books :oops:
I hope to do so tonight.
I'd rather say that Late shields were dished and made of dressed planks rather than wood strips. The Egyptian shields were made of very narrow cedar planks but I think that they were still far from being 'strips' :?

Aitor

Re: Round vs Oval - Mithras - 11-29-2006

I'll be making another shield this winter, my best yet (hopefully) and it will be based on the Dura finds. Why? Because that's where the good evidence is. I'm not going to frolic about in the enjoyable games of oval vs. round and dished vs. flat, when these arguments are based on vastly differing pictorial references which often seem to contradict each other.

So I'm sticking with a Roman shield-making tradition that is perfectly and exhaustively attested: Dura.

I may even attempt authentic pigments! It will be planked, rawhide sewn rim (as with my others).