Turned Aspis Project in Progress

[rocktupac]

Blyth "The Structure of a Hoplite Shield in the Museo Gregoriano Etruscano" p. 12: "Where the original surface of the timber can be seen, it is mostly smooth, but at one point (near the left hand end of the largest fragment in fig. 3) there are circumferential scratches along the inside wall of the bowl. These would be consistent with the use of a lathe, as is suggested by the comic compound in Aristophanes τορνευτο λυρασπιδο πηγός. Alternatively, perhaps, the shield could have been formed by a rotating tool, pivoting at the centre." On the next page he says that there are marks consistent with turning on a shield cover from Olympia.

But I don't know if anyone who practices ancient woodworking techniques has looked closely at the surviving shields, and trained eyes are important. People in the ancient Aegean worked wood very differently than is common in rich countries today.

Thank you, Sean. Very helpful.

I'm currently working on carving an aspis from solid slabs/posts of wood. I'm using an adze to hollow out the interior and to round the exterior. Then I will go back and smooth the surfaces with a variety of woodworking chisels. So far it has been easy work to remove large amounts of wood from the lumber. After roughly 20 minutes of swinging my adze, I was able to get to about half the depth I needed to be in the 'bowl' of the shield on two planks -- and I'm far from a professional woodworker, let alone an ancient armorer.

To me, this just seems right. The adze was well known in the ancient world and widely used. Plenty of craftsmen had the skills to make thick planks for carving into, but then to also hollow them out into a bowl. This method also works with the Aristophanes reference; there is no need to further explain or reinterpret anything. The 'lathe hypothesis' is unnecessarily complicated and cumbersome. A far easier explanation would be that the highly mobile, presumably more affordable adze (which requires far less skill to operate compared to a lathe, and only requires a single person to wield compared to at least two with a lathe) was used to remove wood from boards to create a giant bowl that was then smoothed over with a chisel, thus creating what appear to be "circumferential scratches along the inside wall" as Blythe reported.

Think of it in practical military terms as well: a bunch of craftsmen could be taken along with an army on the march to repair shields or to outright make a new one if need be. All they would need is a small toolkit (perhaps ax/hatchet, adze, chisels, knives?). Logistically speaking, this makes more sense as well.

Again, I'm just spitballing here. It's a hypothesis. I'm not claiming to be speaking the gospel or anything. What does everyone think?