Hoplites of the Archaic Age

[PMBardunias]

The dypilon shield existed in the 8th century bc and it's depicted on pottery very frequently,perhaps more than the round shield.And there is no reason to believe that after that it stopped being used totally. So even in the 7th century bc the shield,direct descendant of the fig.* shield could have existed in the armies.

I had read this in Snodgrass' book. He cites Lorimer, whose books I do not have, as arguing that both the "boetian" and the "dyplon" are really just depictions of the old style figure 8 shields that the greeks would have known their ancestors used, though neither type was in use at the time. This is based on the fact that the dyplon is shown in 7th and 6th c art long after "anyone would claim it was still in use."

Snodgrass seems to try to soften this to allow for a Geometric Dyplon, but agrees on the boetian as art, not fact. He notes that the dyplon seems to have aquired religeos significance- interesting since it looks a little bit like a Labrys in profile.

Personally I find the double-grip Boetian highly unlikely. In images you will find that the artists cannot agree on which way the grip should face- towards the scallop or leavingt he cut-outs up and down.

I bring this up because Snodgrass and Lorimer are rather old sources and in their day there was no evidence for either boetean or dyplon other than vase images. Anything new been said on this topic? Have any archeological finds surfaced?