1912 Publication of a La Tène Shield

[Sean Manning]

In cultures where iron was not very scarce such as La Tene C and Early Anglo-Saxon England, the old grips were often reinforced with a sheet of iron. My shield uses 1.5 mm or so mild steel. The iron sticks above the back of the shield but the underlying wood did not until the introduction of the new grip. On original shield handles, sometimes the iron wraps around the wood at the very center of the shield, but I chose a flat reinforcement because I don't have an anvil and blacksmith's tongs to bend the iron.

Because the iron object from Myklebost is shaped like a trough, I think it would have worked nicely as a reinforcement for the new grip as seen on some medieval bucklers and ancient shields with the old grip. The wood would fit inside and still stick out from the back of the shield for half of more of the diameter of the shield. Because I'm not an expert on the few surviving shield handles from the Viking Age, I'm not sure whether the type reinforced along their length with iron or bronze should be classed differently. It looks like the anonymous Project Forlog post with the typology of metal fittings for handles is https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/decorated-s...ss-norway/