SCUTUM, building and testing, some thoughts

[adamparsons]

The edges may also have been cambered much like a chisel edge. I believe that's from some of the Dura Europas scutums.

This is certainly true of 6-11th century surviving shields in N-W europe, O.K they were single butted planks not ply, and nearly always had a rawhide edge, except for the odd Cu-Alloy clips over the rawhide on flash ones, and really rich examples like Sutton Hoo.

The Gokstad and Tirskom shields (as good as complete) show even board thickness ( 6-7mm ) but cambered tips (the outer 2-3")

Sorry this is not period, but I hope it has some relevance to the historic use of the cambering technique