Hoplon ancient method of construction

[Idomeneas]

The last years i ve been searching around about hopla. Till now i found some good refferences in internet about how to make a construction that looks like hoplon, but no one to explain how actual hopla were constructed. I have some questions
1 how the wooden infrastructure was created cause the popular ''ring'' method i dont see that it can be applied to an original hoplon. First of all its difficult to get so big pieces of wood without bind them with a strong modern glue, and second if it wont crack by itself from weather it will surely do if you apply real pressure on it. The real thing should be so strong that you could sit upon it as we see in ceramics. Were they wooden boards scaloped? Or weave style thin boards?

2 how they managed to fit the bronze facet in a way that it would make no wrinkles?

3 the episimon was painted on bronze with a non permanent method? requiring to be repainted from time to time or was any permament method used to color the metal?

I ve been thinking about constructing one. My Dad can make a ''ring'' one in no time. But i was thinking about creating a real thing.

[zugislander]

Idomeneas,

From my research there are two schools of thought on how they were constructed. The current consensus rests on adzing out rough hewn timber. By way of an example, you would lay out six 6 inch by 6 inch by 36 inch long pieces of wood. Glue and clamp them together to dry. Trace the outline of what you want to end up with, generally round bowl with a lip around it. Then painstakingly adz out the timber. As I understand it, it would not be that skill intensive, but a massive amount of work. But this would be insignificant in a slave owning society like Greece as the slaves would do all this work. This method is advocated by people like Connolly and Sekunda.

The alternative theory involves lathing out a tree cross section. This idea would probably not work very well as all the carpenters I have spoken with are quite certain the wood would split as it dried. This would cause the shield to disintegrate as the core cracked and shattered. I also do not think they would be able to construct a functional lathe that big as they would have to make at least a 20 inch wide lathe to create the largest Aspi we have found. This is how most of the really beautiful modern reconstructions are made (like Manning Imperial). Although Craig does not argue that this was authentic, only possible.

The Bronze face apparently was just as likely leather/rawhide which would be much simpler with a bronze ring around the rim and wrapping around to the back. As far as doing it without wrinkles. Again it is just a staggering amount of intensive labor, which would matter not a whit in a slave society as the slaves would be doing this work once again.

The paint would most certainly be non permanent and have to be repainted periodically. Most notably immediately before a battle. I also seem to recall references to them painting them, but can not think of any at the moment.

As to how the ancients did it. As of the current state of affairs we will never know as the only wood that survives is in the rim. No one will tear the remains apart to see what is in there. The best anyone has actually done is examine the wood visible in the shield closely. These examinations led people to create the adz theory. But even these authors admit that it is possible that the rim was a separate construction piece and thus whatever we could learn from the rim would be of no value to the construction of the bowl itself. Pretty much any system that leads to a functional bowl within the technology limits of the ancient world should be acceptable.

Cordially,

Michael

[spyros]

Personally I’m more in favor of option A. only with a little twist. I mean why can’t one pre-cut the pieces of the aspis before you glue them together? It would work pretty much like the staffs of a barrel. It would save a lot of time, especially during the Peloponnesian war when one had to face constant fighting, tear and loses.

We know, for example, from Lysias that he and his brother Polemarchus owned a shield manufactory using 120 douloi artisans inherited from their father. I’m stretching the fact that they were douloi and not andrapoda (owned thing) or slaves as we understand the term. Douloi were more like bondsmen entitled to legal representation and the majority of them were artisans, teachers etc., blue collars if I can use the term.

I’m not talking about a fully factory line here, but it won’t do to disregard the level of artistry that need pushes people to achieve, as it is soundly demonstrated by the refining installations in Laurion.

Manning Imperial makes a shield that looks that way. I'm not sertain about the methods they use, but it is an example of how a shield would look leaving Lysias factory IMHO

[hoplite14gr]

Agree with Spyros here.

A bronzesmith in Monastirakli-Athens told us the it is easier to make a metal round disk and "bowl-shape it".
The difficult part is to find a carpender willing to treat the wooden planks with steam and fit them in the metal "bowl".

I went and ask and prices were really murderous.

Kind regards

[zugislander]

Spyros,

It certainly could be done with the wood cut first and assembled/glued later. However, the carpenters I know say that would be much more work. A man with reasonable skill can adze out the bowl in a day, it would probably take a couple of days to work the rim as that would require either much larger hunks of wood to allow the adze to be used, or much more careful work with smaller and slower tools.

I have spoken with Craig at Manning and he said his is lathed. The only historical problem with his particular (and beautiful) work is that the evidence suggests wider pieces of wood. Each shield was custom made for its owner so a "factory" would be impossible, but skilled craftsmen who knew what they were doing would certainly be the ones making them. Quite probably working in teams for the various portions.

Stefanos,

I have a bronze faced Aspis reconstruction and the metal works MUCH better when you have the wooden bowl to work the metal around. Please believe me! Both of the auto body men who worked on getting my bronze around the wood cursed me up and down for installing the interior fittings before letting them have the shield for fitting the metal face.

I do not believe that planks could be steamed to form an aspis. Perhaps part of the way, but the majority would have to be done by hand removal of the offending wood.

Cordially,

Michael

[Peter Raftos]

I saw that bronzesmith in Monastiraki at work in 1997. Is he the big happy guy that whistles all the time? He spins his metal from small plate size pieces up to stuff nealry a metre wide. Isn't he amazing to watch.

Lysias' was not the only shield factory. See The Date of Apollodorus' Speech against Timotheus and Its Implications for Athenian History and Legal Procedure Edward M. Harris, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 109, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 44-52 . Here we learn that when Pasion reached the age of majority, the lease of a bank and shield factory, which had lasted for eight years, was terminated.

I must agree that a lage block turned on a lathe until it resembles a bowl is the most likely method. We know this from Aristophanes, 'Birds' line 491. Here the Greek word for "shield maker", torneutoluraspidopêgos is used. It roughly translates as "one who puts together lyres and shields by turning". If a purpose built lathe was not in use a large potters wheel could be used to do this. (The Greeks introduced the large fast turning potter's wheel as early as 900 BC).The same lathe ( potters wheel ) used to form the aspis could also have been used to spin the sheet onto the shield face. This could be done before the back was hollowed out.

The bronze facincigs at the Olympia Museum and the Agora Museum are a bit squashed but don't look that deep. What may have helped keep them on was how the bronze seems to be turned under where the lip starts. But some shields seem to have had only rims. There seems to be an enormous variety in depth, diameter and profile even in the same period.

From memory the gentleman in Monastiraki makes hollow copper and bronze vessels from his pre cut disks. He sometimes uses forms as well as his turning tools. If he had a horizontal lathe ( potters wheel ) it wouldn't be hard to spin the bronze onto the wooden shield face and enclosed 'form' rather than doing it in the opposite direction to have an empty vessel. Just a thought.

[zugislander]

Peter,

A lathe is certainly the easist and best results method for production today, if you have one big enough. But there are finds as big a 40 inches across and many of the surviving originals are not circular, but rather tend toward slightly oval. I believe that either of these factors would make it next to impossible on any ancient wheel, and perhaps even the majority of modern wheels, to make an aspis.

To bad we will never know for certain.

I think that the later, smaller, and more symetrical shields of the hellenistic age are more likely to have been wheel produced, but I think the Classical age shields were hand produced in some fashion. It is the only way I can find to account for all the oddities of construction.

Cordially,

Michael

[hoplite14gr]

The men who made Michael's shield were professionals and their opinion does matter.
Perhaps the ancients used techniques that we have abandoned in the course of technical evolution though the ages and they are not preserved any more.
There are fully circular shields in Olympia and National Museum in Athens.

The potter wheel was probably earlier Peter from what we can gather from Bronze Age pottery.

The Manning shield could be accurate compaired to the Chigi Vase.
The shields depicted there had very narrow planks.
One thought is that this aids repair and maintainace.
Another that "riki" (hard wood shrub) growing in Laconia have narrow planks.

Kind regards

[Idomeneas]

Thanks for all your answers guys

The Chigi vase comfused me. Cause i think the logical way is the one with planks trimmed down. But in that vase its like a weave patern and i dont think that the artist made an error on that except if the drawn interior doesnt represent wood. Fitting the bended planks in a bronze bown i think its difficult but having the core and adjust the bronze me and my dad we think its more possible. The thing is how they did it in a flawless way :?:

About the coloring. they supposed to scrub the shields with oil to make them shiny. If there is a simple organic paint on it it will break at least imo. Is there anybody who experimented on this? Im really curious to know the results.

[Sean Manning]

Has anyone examined the example from the Vatican Museum in Connolly? His painting looks like a significant fraction of the bowl of the shield has survived. You'd think that a close examination of the actual artifact would reveal some details of how that particular example was made.

[Anonymous]

I thought of the Vatican shield, too, Craig - it's got the most wood.

Yannis, if your dad can turn out ring-pattern shields in no time, get him to go into production! The Greek Hoplite re-enactment world needs him!

As to the Chigi vase shields, the pattern suggests to me that they were laminated together and, as I have posted elsewhere on this Forum, this method has been used by Wulf, formerly of the Hoplite Association. He used a mould or former and says the whole business was very time-consuming - but which method isn't?

The inauthentic ring-method, using plywood, produces shields you can stand on, no problem, and I believe that this would probably also be true if you used plain wood, so long as you allowed sufficient overlap of each level to the next. Someone here has made such a shield - can you stand on it?

RLQM is advertising wooden aspides with a bronze facing, bronze cuirasses and greaves. I've e-mailed to ask about prices and am eagerly awaiting a reply...

[Tarbicus]

RLQM is advertising wooden aspides with a bronze facing, bronze cuirasses and greaves.

Where? All I see offered are aluminium and spun. :wink:

[Anonymous]

Yes, that's the original line and there seem to be separate web-pages. The link I followed is in the Marketplace section, Tarby.

[spyros]

First of all Laudes to @Idomeneas for starting this thread. I know that it has been discussed in other threads but we ought to go into more depth but such an issue. Maybe even make it sticky (any mods nudge-nudge, wink-wink).

It would be rally great if a researcher took some time to x-ray the Vatican and the other shields. You would at least know the size of the planks. With the new techniques we might even knew how they were laid. But if wishes were fishes….

No as to the pre-cut pieces, I’m not saying that they were steamed but rather roughly shaped, glued and then shaped using a drawknife. I think it would be also useful to find out what tools would be available to them. Pottery scenes like this image bellow showing an Athenian carpenter at work using an adze similar to what a cooper might use, might give us some more hints on the techniques they actually utilized.

In the link bellow there are some pictures of tools used to shape a barrel. Hope they are of use
http://www.bladnoch.co.uk/tour4.htm

[hoplite14gr]

We must check the porbaility of various techniques though.
Kind regards