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"shield-splitter" /Early Vikiing shield Archeological specifications added
half eye:
Fellas,
here's some of the data (compiled by Peter Beatson-NVG Miklagaard). There will be the charts and diagrams added like pictures at the bottom.
Generally the shields were between 80-90 cm dia. The "board" (shield) was flat and made of a single layer of planks, butted together. (there is a possibility that somw may have been glued but most show no evidence of this) Next thing is that when they examined battle damage to shields the indicatators are that the primary purpose was protection from missles. There is a very limited amount of indicators that some damage was from swords or lite axes. The heavy iron boss in the center of the shields indicte that they changed their fighting style to allow the shield as a device to parry during hand to hand combat.
The shield from the Gokstad burial was made of white pine and not considered an example of a combat shield. The battle damage reports were taken from war shields like one found at the Trelleborg Ring Fortress...Slagelse, Denmark and another from a bog inTira, Latvia.....these shields were made of either spruce or fir planks. (Yartan 1961)
Last thing: "there is no archeological evidence for laminated or cross-ply construction....." (Haarke 1981)
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Wolfsongforge:
HA! thanks Rich, I have always wondered about the rim. some folks say they had no rim because in a fight you want the edge of his weapon to get caught in it. then some folks say there was one. glad to know what is what now.and i see they have the same kind of center grip as some targes. i know for a fact the center grip shields are used for parrying and the arm through were basically for hiding behind( i know cause i have used them both in reenactments) and i can see the purpose of the rim being the binder that held the planks together so no glue would be needed.
But i will be the first to say i am no shield expert. but I do know the edged weapons so ..lol if we have an argument bout that i can be certain!
God Bless
Kenneth
half eye:
Wolf,
One of the things the guy also said is that they "surmise" that the rivets/screws around the boss and the holes around the rim were what actually held the shield planks together.....and on the rims they found evidence for both riveted metal and laced on leather banding, guess it depended on what the guy could aford, eh?
rich
ken75:
rich shoot that sob at some white pine and lets see the destruction, long as i aint holdin it im short of fresh draws !!
half eye:
I'll be puttin a shield (part of one anyway) together and plan to shoot the snot out of it......and I aint gonna be nowhere but in front of it neither.
rich
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