German language thesis on Roman shields

[jho]

From the publisher's website ( www.vml.de ) it appears that this thesis on Roman shields is now available for 75 EUR:

Ansgar Nabbefeld, Römische Schilde. Studien zu Funden und bildlichen Überlieferungen vom Ende der Republik bis in die späte Kaiserzeit.
Kölner Studien zur Archäologie der römischen Provinzen, ISSN:0945-2893, Dissertation Universität Köln, 2007, ISBN-13: 978-3-89646-138-4, Erscheinungsort: Rahden/Westf., Erscheinungsjahr: 2008

Its on my Xmas wishlist. Has somebody already read it?

[martijn.wijnhoven]

Jens,

Sounds like a very interesting read; I still have to read Eichberg’s book Scutum though.

Thank you for pointing this out.

Best wishes and curious if somebody here is indeed familiar with its contents,

Martijn

[Eleatic Guest]

Does it threat the Yin and Yang symbols on two shields in the Notitia Dignitatum?

[jho]

I found this one under the Christmas tree. It is from the same series as the Miks book on swords and has the same basic style and layout. Initial comments:

The discussion is surprisingly limited (approx. 50 pages out of 250) but the catalogue is useful. Notable absences are the bronze lighting bolt from Kalkriese and the substantial amounts of shield parts from Massada. New for me were: a trapezoidal scutum style shield from Nijmegen (published earlier in the "Roman Frontier Studies" series and his claim that the shields from Dura may have been furnished with a organic cover AFTER painting.

In summary: not as exciting as the Miks book but the catalogue alone is worth the money to me.

[garrelt]

Just started to read this book.
nice supplement to the Christian Miks book

[Marcus Mummius]

and his claim that the shields from Dura may have been furnished with a organic cover AFTER painting.

This has been noticed by other in the past too. Several shields (shieldfragments) found in the Illerup bog also had rawhide (parchment) over the painting. I talked to a researcher from Denmark at a conference about 2,5 years ago and he gave me this information. They did tests using lineseed oil to make thinned out rawhide transparent. It took some time too do, but it worked very good. Such a cover would have worked very well to protect the paint from bad weather.

Vale,

[Eleatic Guest]

Does it deal with the Yin and Yang symbols on two shields in the Notitia Dignitatum?

May I ask the question again? I wonder why no author so far has drawn attention to the fact that the first representation of the Yin and Yang symbol occurs in a Roman context - a millenium before the symbol (not the philosophical idea which is much older) appears in ancient China in the 14th century.

[jho]

No, he does not address this issue. The ND is beyond the scope of this work, it deals mainly with the 1st to 3rd century.

[Medicus matt]

I wonder why no author so far has drawn attention to the fact that the first representation of the Yin and Yang symbol occurs in a Roman context - .

They have. Giovanni Monastra wrote about it years ago.

English translation here:-

[url:1b0fqqzd]http://www.estovest.net/tradizione/yinyang_en.html[/url]

[Eleatic Guest]

They have. Giovanni Monastra wrote about it years ago.

English translation here:-

[url:nq5976s3]http://www.estovest.net/tradizione/yinyang_en.html[/url]

Thanks a lot! Do you have by chance images of the shields with a larger resolution than those below?

4th row: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... itum_4.jpg

4th row: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... itum_6.jpg

[garrelt]

Read the book, going to make a new shield soon.
Saw the Illerup/Adal and Nydam shields last year during vacation/event in Denmark.
I like the Roman-Iron age scandinavian "germanic" style.

It is a long way from the known limes.
Trading there was, but still there is a distinct difference between the "Scandinavian" and the "Gallo-Germanic-Roman" style known from within the limes.

This raises another question/debate for another topic:
What is "typical" Celtic,Roman,Germanic etc. during the Roman era .
I don't mean here certain "stereotypes" which have been created during the last 200 years.

[Medicus matt]

Thanks a lot! Do you have by chance images of the shields with a larger resolution than those below?

4th row: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... itum_4.jpg

4th row: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... itum_6.jpg

Yes. Somewhere at home I've got a digitised set of images of the British Museum's copy of the Notitia. I'll dig them out for you.

[Medicus matt]

There are 22 image plates in the BM copy.
Total file size for all 22 is about 5Mb so if you want I can email you the whole thing, or just copies of the two plates you're interested in. Resolution is about 200% that of the Wiki files.

[Robert Vermaat]

There are 22 image plates in the BM copy.
Total file size for all 22 is about 5Mb so if you want I can email you the whole thing.

Oh yes please!

[Medicus matt]

On it's way to you Robert.