Building a correct Chigi Vase aspis

[Kineas]

I reenact Ancient Greece (that's what I write books about, of course..) and I've now built something like 15 aspides--or build parts of them. There's a team of four of us (amateurs all, except our metal smith Aurora) who build them, as a team.

About six months ago, I finally 'broke the code.' The aspis below is the first one I think is really correct. Up until this point, we'd get the shape right, and the size right, and the interior right. And we were getting the weight right... but the construction details were wrong, and I knew we needed to rethink it all.

I spent some time staring at the Chigi vase. Here's a reconstruction of it so as not to break copyright.




After a while, I decided that I was looking at strips of wood.

A couple of us built a "Boeotian" (it is on another thread) with strips of wood built into the outer face. It was complex, hard to build, and didn't seem quite right. just as one example,a ll the wood strips lay on one axis, and that's not what I see in the Chigi vase..

So I commissioned a professional woodworker to make me an oak rim, and I left it for a year, and stared at it while I did other stuff in my shop.

Three months ago,m when we all decided to reenact Marathon's 2500th, I started on it. I'll let the pics tell the rest.

[Kineas]

[Kineas]

Making ash strips



Strips are a little more than 3 feet long (about 1 meter) and 2 cm wide and about 3/16ths thick. Later I discovered that this was TOO THICK and that 1/8 or even less was better.

[Kineas]

First layer of strips in place



Starting the second layer



And the third layer going in:

[Kineas]

And I bled on it...



And at this point, I decided to test my theory about ash strips inserted under pressure, so I shot a steel bodkin arrow at it from a Grozer 55 pound bow.



The arrow came back and hit me in the shin--that's how fast and hard it bounced off the face of the shield.

[Kineas]

Mostly complete--still lacking the bronze rim. I ran out of time.



Compare this to the Chigi vase. The leather on the inside isn't really "armour." It prevents the ash strips from tearing my skin and my chiton.

[Kineas]

I copied the solid antelabe from one from Olympia. I was running a Hoplitodromos and didn't want a soft antelabe.

The real breakthroughs of this shield (to me) are:

1) I now understand why the Classical aspis has the metal furniture on the inside--four to eight pins through the wood holding ropes. That's because the Archaic aspis built of wood strips would have been held firmly together by having those eight pins through the whole of the three layers right there. It is very stable.

2) The arrow resistant nature of the ash splints under torque--it's like shooting at a bow. They deflect energy--it's a fantastic design.

3) The weight--it weighs less than 10 pounds, and that's with an unnecessarily heavy rim and a cross bar under the arm that is handy but, as I discovered in building, not required. I carried it all day at Marathon--almost literally all day I ran 2,5 kilometers up and down our column, and then I ran a hoplitodromos. I'm 49 years old.

4) the fit of the porpax. The porpax on this fits my arm so tightly that when I roll my wrist, the shield follows it--even if I am not grasping the antelabe. I now believe that this is how any purpose-made shield was rigged. It is almost magical--I can't wait to fight with it in some sparring.

Remember, this is 590 BCE. By 450, the shield had changes as radically as it would change again by 330 to become the Macedonian aspis. My biggest initial error was trying to make sense of all the evidence (650-300BCE) in one shield. It changed as warfare changed. This shield is for an aristocratic fighter who fights both on a team and by himself.

Hope you like it!

[Kineas]

At Marathon

[Ghostmojo]

Kineas - your craftsmanship and workmanship are outstanding. Wonderful photographs. Thanks for sharing :-) 8)

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Thanks for sharing the information Kineas.
Does it not relect also the evidence from the Vatican Aspice?
I seem to recall the Connolly drawind showing a strip construction?
I also makes sense that fighting equipment would be light, not heavy and unweildable!

Great reconstruction!

Some people think you are no longer fit to be a military reenactor
once you are not a teenager. Impressive info on the races too.
:wink:

[Daniel S.]

Kineas -- thanks for this. I'm particularly interested in this method since I have saved a bunch of wide wooden blinds (I think that's the English term for the shading devices you put in windows). What is particularly interesting with your method is that you really incorporate the springiness of the wooden strips to boost the defensive value of the shield. The strips I have access to are probably made from pine so might not be the best material to achieve that tough springiness, but if nothing else it would make a decent prototype to experiment with.

I had thought about using the wooden strips to make the rim. It seems that it could be a doable method since you believe that the oak rim is a bit of an overkill.

What I'm thinking about is laying out strips so that the ends overlap, and then bending, gluing, and clamping them to shape. That would give tension outwards. Don't know how clear that description is but is that a way forward that sounds worthwhile to you?

/Daniel

orderandcreativity.com

[KrimzonKnight]

would it be possible that later aspides were also of this construction? like from the persian war era? Or is it definitive that those were built in a different manner?

[Kineas]

@ Daniel--As long as the rim is truly stiff--that is, solid, and won't warp under heavy pressure--go for it.

@ Eric--I want to be both humble and careful. Perhaps, is the best I'll say. For example, it may well be that a Persian Wars aspis is this same construction method with thick leather covering the WHOLE inside. Or not..... I've built a boat hull Boeotian and now a Chigi Vase. My next project will be to build a 500BC aspis that is bronze faced but backed by the structure in mine--but laid in in a pattern that will, I hope, make sense of the bronze shield fittings from Olympia and elsewhere--the interior fittings. I need to contract parts of this shield to different makers--to Manning Imperial and to my carpenter friend. But I'll write it up as I complete it. I also have to do more research. This is pretty dark territory, friends. It's hard to say that I KNOW anything.

one of the hardest parts of making any of these items is, quite simply, to remember that these things were built by craftsmen. Home building complex stuff always results in errors of weight, over-building, etc. So I've learned to farm out the really complex parts to people who understand EXACTLY how to make the parts they make. Nothing in the past was crude. It's our efforts to reproduce them that are often crude.

[John Conyard]

I like it a lot! Shaping the laths with curved sides would eliminate the gaps in the design and make the whole thing very viable.

Very nice. Write it up and get it published!