Colours of a legion?

[Paullus Scipio]

You've missed one obvious colour, Vitalis!

No 'feminine' associations in the Roman world, as far as I know... and it appears on the Dura shields too... :wink:

- Nathan

Indeed it does!....not a 'pink' shield as such, but rather pink trim on darkish green shields.

The first excavations at Dura were by Franz Cumont in 1922-23, and here are the descriptions of some of the shields, which date from the siege in 256 AD….

CUMONT'S "FRAGMENT A"
An oval shield, painted in an interesting design. It is dark green with the edge bordered with a wide bright red border. On the inside edge of the border is a green line, following the border round the shield and outlined white on both edges. Between the two white lines there are painted a series of imitation gemstones, yellow with white “glints”. On the inner white border there are also painted a series of imitation gemstones: red and lilac pink. Inside this outlined border stripe, the rest of the shield is plain green. It is an oval plank shield, made from poplar.
CUMONT'S "FRAGMENT B"
The rectangular scutum was still in use in the mid-3rd century. As well as the more famous red scutum (which is illustrated in every book on the Roman army!) there is a lesser-known scutum from Dura. It is a very faded shield, green then yellow with a red border around the boss in the centre. Cumont seems to imply that the green and yellow sections follow the rectangular shape of the shield.
CUMONT'S "FRAGMENT C"
It is another oval shield, mostly green again. It is painted exactly like fragment A, except with no gemstones. It also has further decoration in the centre, a pink circle around the boss, with brown lines on it (presumably concentric lines); and encircling this pink area is a blue line.

Another dark green oval shield had a device of a man ( God/Emperor?) painted in natural colours -flesh, brown boots, pale yellow over-tunic over a dark green long sleeved under-tunic, a dun tan coloured cloak, brown hat, a red and white striped belt and armed with a black spear and small circular shield which was itself a dark yellow, almost orange, with a reddish-tan edge....!

Two rectangular shields on an Egyptian 'Nile' mosaic show soldiers who are probably Hellenistic 'imitation' legionaries, but just possibly might be Roman, wearing helmets with white plumes. The shields bear a black scorpion design, claws to the top, tail at the bottom. One has a tan background, with black border;the other a dark brown top half, and pink bottom half with cream border.....

So, black and pink were possibilities too.......

[Nathan Ross]

Thanks Paul - I'd read a description of the 'other' Dura shields before, but didn't remember the exact details!

So were there six painted shields found there in total (Cumont's A (oval, green with 'gems'), B (rectangular green/yellow/red) and C (oval, green with pink centre), plus the 'Warrior God' shield, then the two 'famous' red shields, one rectangular with lion and bird etc and one oval with warrior figures), or are there more?

And did the shield fragments from Masada have any traces of paint remaining, does anyone know?

- Nathan

[Doc]

David, I took fresh and heavily sooted metal can and dissolved in it beeswax. After several minutes and vigorous stirring, the solution was what we call today Paynes gray which, can be used in place of a true black if true black is too dark. The actual color of my mixture nonetheless, is nearly a true black.

Also these lighter blacks are not necessarily dark greys, the can also be VERY DARK greens. Something like a phthalo green mixed with burnt umber.

[Crispvs]

Actually Nathan, there were quite a lot of shield boards found at Dura (22, including the well known ones, if I recall correctly without access to the report I have at home), but most of them were painted in a single colour only, mainly pale pink and a few white ones.

Crispvs

[M. Demetrius]

sooted metal can and dissolved in it beeswax.

You can also add powdered charcoal, readily available to the Romans to darken the wax further, but like we both said. Once you add anything "not black", you can't get back to black, not really.