Aspis...

[spyros]

Have you considered constructing a pole-lathe?

Thats how I remember my grandfather's lathe more or less

Thank you fyle Paul, maybe the first step would be to construct the lathe. And yes, most people would use it for small object because of stabillity problems. But there must be a way to overcame this. I've seen a couple of large wooden bowls about 1/2m, large enoufh for a small shield, like a phalangite would use perhaps, that thet use to make bread.

Also remember how they use to call the shield maker in ancient Greece torneutoluraspidopêgos. I'm using Mathew's site as a reference, so Mathew if you could provide us with more information I would apreciate that.

Stefane, if I'm not mistaken you leave in Thessaloniki. There is a man there that he is making ancient musical instriments for bands like Thaimonia Nymphy.Ηis name is Nikos Bra

Maybe he as a lyre maker, can provide us with more information on ancient woodcarving.

[Anonymous]

I've never heard of any evidence that shields were made from a single piece of wood. If you cut horizontally, the grain would run end-on to the face and I wonder what effect this might have on its defensive qualities.
You could cut a vertical slice, of course, but, in either case, you'd be likely to get cracks opening up across the shield as it seasoned.

Other shield-makers (Wulf Guy-Ragan and Ashley Holt) have, I believe, worked using thick baulks of timber, side by side, which they then sculpt. Wulf has also used the layer technique. I've never used a router, but I think Ashley said that he did, at some point.

[spyros]

This is what I have in mind. the scan is from Osprey's Elite series "The Spartan Army".

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e238/ ... hields.jpg

According to the description they are 8th century warriors of Lycourgos time. The armour on the left and the helmet on the right is based on the Argos findings. The man on the left is wearing an early corinthian helmet.

Lovely chaps, wouldn't you agree?

[Anonymous]

So they class those as Dipylon shields, eh? That's about what I thought. I remember novelist Henry Treece made a reference to a shield which was leather stretched on a frame and that it acquired in-arching at the sides, where there was no support from the frame, as the leather shrank. He wrote something about this final shape being the shield's "ananke". The novel was set in the Greek Heroic Age, so I assume this is his notion of how the dipylon was made.

[Anonymous]

Those are nice, clear images. Do we have any references to the colours used? I'm also interested in whether the blazons were stylised, like mediaeval ones, or more lifelike, using shading. Most of the ones I've seen re-constructed are two-dimensional, but less stylised than the mediaeval ones, while others attempt to be lifelike.

[spyros]

Even though I don't agree wholly agree with his views on more than one subject, never the less here is Victor Hanson's list of 5 articles for the battle of Delium. The part for the aspis is in bold.

Part I: The Battle http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120605.html

Part II: The Aftermath http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120805.html

Part III: The Armor and Ranks http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120805.html

Part IV: Innovation and the Battlefield http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson121005.html

Part V: Coalition Warfare http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson121205B.html

As always informative and beautifully written, but with no neoconservative propaganda

[spyros]

About the aspis construction, how does that seem to you? Identical pie pieces hold together. Any suggestion on how to glue or nail together?

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e238/ ... uction.gif

[hoplite14gr]

Gioi are the shields from Chase book 1955?
Our copy is rather torn and is missing pages.
These are not hoplon but rather pikeman´s "makedonian pelta".

Spyro glues are rasin, balsa with flour glue or bull glue (Tavrokola).
See the Greek glues thread also.
You seem to like the "Apollonian Tripod". The "crusading" image for the coalition hoplite fighting agianst Kirra in the Delfic holy war.
Kind regards

[Anonymous]

Spyros, the aspis construction suggested is attractive because it has only eight pieces, each of which could be made from a fairly small piece of timber, and they appear identical, which should make the job easier. I don't like the points meeting in the middle, because it looks like a fundamentally weak structure, almost like a theatrical "star-trap", which is designed to come apart. It could be pegged together, I think the ancients were good at that, and, of course, the reinforcing plate often shown on shields would bind the eight sections, additionally.

[spyros]

You seem to like the "Apollonian Tripod". The "crusading" image for the coalition hoplite fighting agianst Kirra in the Delfic holy war.
Kind regards

Actually I prefer the Bull of the Euboean league.

Paul and Stefanos, thank you for your sugestions. I think that a combination of pegs and glue would work nicely.

Now, how to form the pieces? Hmm....

I was thinking about a press, like the one used for the scutums, but probably I'll drop the idea.

[Matthew Amt]

Hi, sorry that I don't really have much more solid information to add. But in talking about this with various people over the years, the impression I got was that the wood was probably parallel slabs or timbers laid side-by-side and then hollowed out. I *think* I remember hearing that the wooden remains of the Vatican shield implied that. It would be a lot more solid than the wedge-shaped slices, I should think.

For the turning, a better idea than a pole-lathe with the shield on edge might be something more like a large potter's wheel, with the shield lying flat on a round stone slab. I even thought it might be clever to turn the outside, then fit the bronze facing to it, and THEN hollow out the inside. No basis at all for thinking that, though, since a good metalworker might not need to form the metal directly on the shield at all, just test-fit it together as the work progresses.

You could save time by doing some cross-sections at intervals corresponding to the widths of your timbers, and rough-cutting the profile on each piece ahead of time.

Mind you, there might have been more than one way to do this! Apparently the assumption that a lot of ancient shields were wicker has been shown to be based on very little, to the point where some folks are saying there's really no evidence for wicker at all. I'm not completely sold on that, thinking of a clay model of a figure-8 shield that really looks like it has a wicker pattern painted on it. But it's on the outside as well as the inside! (If I'm recalling correctly.) And that shouldn't be right. The Chigi vase is also frustrating, because it really does look like layered strips and/or pie segments.

Wish I could tell you more!

Khairete,

Matthew

[hoplite14gr]

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.

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

Kind regards

[FAVENTIANVS]

I have the Roman edition of this.

[FAVENTIANVS]

These books are supposed for wargaming but they are even more interesting, even for re-enactors!

[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