Aspis...

[Matthew Amt]

Mathew,
I saw your reconstruction of the bronze age shield.
I saw the "Chigi Vase" and some archaic era depictions.
I am tempted to think that a hoplton with denser intelocated wooden planks than your reconstruction is not necessarily ahistorical.

That was my thought for a long time, too, that shields had originally been leather or hide over wicker, and at some point the wicker got thicker, as it were! Now we're thinking that Bronze Age shields were simply layered hide/leather, with no wicker or wood, but the evidence is so scanty. My wicker-based shield was one of those projects that I jumped into simply because I had the materials on hand, and it seemed to fit with the evidence at the time. I'll make a new one (or two or three or four!) if I can ever afford more leather.

In my opinion the wooden heavy shield gradualy evolved to give the hoplite "punching power" at first clash. Any thoughts?

Hmm, possible, but it's always dangerous to try to decide whether the gear is following the tactics or vice versa. The pushing may have gotten more intense and important simply because the shields started to get heavier! Or, you could be at least partly right and it was sort of a combination: men found individually that more solid shields were better for both offense and defense, so they became more popular, and that led to more unified sorts of shoving. Don't know!

Khairete,

Matthew