"shield-splitter" /Early Vikiing shield Archeological specifications added

[Wolfsongforge]

the reason i said this is as you said, metal was scarce. well steel was anyways. but even plain iron was expensive. and from pictures i have seen in books and in museums showed that the hide was attached with the boss and a row of tacks.
so i would think that the average young lad they got from a village to go raiding,  he  would have the cheapest of materials.so no tacks or boss. i may be wrong, been wrong before, will be again.

so i may make a targe of raw hide covered beech and shoot the hell out of it and see.and before i get jumped on,yes a targe is scottish but i aint makeing a full sized shield to shoot at!

[markinengland]

Wolf,

To go raiding was a chance to get rich. If I was leading a raid I would pick a crew from those who had earnt a reputation and had the gear. At the least this would include a sword or spear ans sheild, basic armour of some sort and this would already mark the warrior as a warrior and as relatively rich. I wouldn't waste valuable ship space on taking a lad who didn't have the basic gear and would be dead in a second in real close quarter combat with sharp weapons!

If there is no money for nails the rawhide could still be lashed on with rawhide couldn't it? If all the sheilds found had iron nails doewsn't this suggest that it is likley that all the sheilds had iron nails to hold the rawhide on?

Just thinking, not fighting.

[mullet]

kviljo;

 Well they have a skull in the same museum that this style point was stuck in. Everybodies house that Claude visited had their yards and driveways paved damn near with stone artifacts made from Danish Flint.

[bow-toxo]

Eyh, Mullet, the vikings didn't use flint points

The best Viking shields were made from linden, and were far form 1" thick. A properly made shield with two layers of linden glued at 90 degrees with an outside layer of rawhide would probably stop any historical arrow. Perhaps except the largest Mary Rose arrows.

  Maybe not. Njal's Saga tells of Gunnar of Hlidarendi shooting an arrow at a man who, seeing the arrow coming, raised a thin round shield in defense, The arrow pierced the shield and the man's skull, pritruding behind his head. Shields were not expected to give unlimited protection. They were large enough to be too heavy for a man on foot to lug around if they were thicker or if they had more metal than the boss.

[half eye]

Hey fellas,
     didn't want to get nothin started, just wanted to post a pretty cool head and what I did to test it. I dont know how to post a link but found an Danish Archeologists' report on early viking shields that is pretty definate on how they were made because they found some that were nearly 90% complete. They also said that the majority of the ones found to date were either spruce or fir, and all were single layer of wood and that was covered with compacted grass and leather
     I'll get the charts etc downloaded and maybe can post them as documents.......sorry didn't mean to start a big discussion. I'll post the shield specifications, and am going to build one, and shoot it with several of the period heads, and different weight bows and maybe we can find out what's what, eh? I really was just trying to find out how tough the forged heads were and figured that 1-1/8" of hard white oak was a pretty tough target.
    Anyway....let me get the info together so I can post it for everybody to read.
rich

[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

[mullet]

 That is some cool stuff, Rich.

[aero86]

i keep seeing Danish,  is that just were the items were found?  or were vikings from there?  i know its off topic, but ive family history from there, and have just started looking into it..

[The Gopher]

is "linden" in europe a different tree than in the US? to me linden is another name for basswood, which we use for carving because it is relatively soft and easy to carve. i know nothing about shields, bodkins etc. but if i had a choice between hiding behind a basswood shield or an oak shield i'm taking the oak everytime.

[half eye]

Gopher,
      Yes, the american basswood is in fact linden, the carving wood. I figure there was a reason they used the "soft" woods, just aint figured that out quite yet.....but I'm sure there was a reason.

aero,
      I dont know why there seems to be so much Danish in the finds, but for the shields they been dug up in Denmark, Norway, Latvia, the British Isles and some in Germany and Russia (Russ). Maybe some of the other fellas that do the diggin just didn't post their findings or something. If your just starting in on the whole Viking thing try to remember they were not divided up like today, i.e. Sammi, Norway, Denmark, Sweeden and the like. They divided them selves by warlord aligience, and with groups that were interested in exploring either Eastward or Westward. Some of the groups went to Iceland, Greenland, and the North America's and a bunch went into what is now Russia, Balkins and damned near to India and China. And both groups went down to harrass the British Isles, France and the Mediteranmian areas.      Just to make a point, pure metals (like copper) can be traced to point of origin by their impurities makeup. Well, they found great lakes copper metal in what's now Iraq (find dated to 900), and I'm pretty sure the NA guys didn't paddle their 30 man canoes over there, so that kinda leaves them Viking dudes.
hopethat helps some.
rich

[aero86]

thanks half eye.  i knew the NA copper got around a bit here, but didnt realize it made it that far!