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The Iron Age Shield that isn't made of metal

submitted by Aard Vark

(oritteropo)
10 months 4 weeks ago

YouTube description:

In 2015, what we knew about Iron Age shields all changed. And it changed in a field in Leicester...

Iron Age Curator Sophia Adams explains the construction of the first organic bark shield ever discovered in the Northern Hemisphere - how it was built, how it was used and how it changes what we know about shields of the time.

It's 2,200 years old. And it's an object you can really get behind.

Content Warning: Contains wholesome depictions of Iron Age woodworking

2 Comments

newtboy

says...

I think it’s the case that most shields had little to no metal.
This appears to be the case in both the Bronze Age and Iron Age.
Metal was extremely expensive, and heavy. A shield made entirely of metal would have cost far more than a sword, which was often equivalent to a nice home in value, and would have weighed down any regular soldier severely.
Spartan shields were wood with a thin bronze face and still weighed nearly 30lbs. If made of solid bronze, they would be unusably heavy.
Xerxes’ storm troopers, the immortals, his best trained and equipped, had only leather armor and wicker shields well into the Bronze Age.