'Phenomenal' 2,300-Year-Old Bark Shield Found In Leicestershire (theguardian.com) 44
pgmrdlm shares a report from The Guardian: An "astonishing and unparalleled" 2,300-year-old shield made of tree bark has been discovered in Leicestershire, the only example of its kind ever found in Europe. The shield was discovered in 2015 by archaeologists from the University of Leicester Archaeological Service in a site close to the River Soar. Organic objects from the period very rarely survive, but the shield was preserved in waterlogged soil and may have been deposited in a water-filled pit, according to Matt Beamish, the lead archaeologist for the service.
Bark shields of the period were entirely unknown in the northern hemisphere, he told the Guardian, and the assumption was that the material may have been too flimsy for use in war. However experiments to remake the weapon in alder and willow showed the 3mm-thick shield would have been tough enough for battle but incredibly light. It was likely that, contrary to assumptions, similar weapons were widespread, Beamish said. The shield is made from green bark that has been stiffened with internal wooden laths, described by Beamish as "like a whalebone corset of split hardwood," and surrounded by a rim of hazel, with a twisted willow boss. The malleable green wood would then tighten as it dried, giving the shield its strength and forming the rounded rectangles into a slightly "waisted" shape, like a subtle figure of eight. The University of York and University of Leicester have both released statements on the discovery.
Bark shields of the period were entirely unknown in the northern hemisphere, he told the Guardian, and the assumption was that the material may have been too flimsy for use in war. However experiments to remake the weapon in alder and willow showed the 3mm-thick shield would have been tough enough for battle but incredibly light. It was likely that, contrary to assumptions, similar weapons were widespread, Beamish said. The shield is made from green bark that has been stiffened with internal wooden laths, described by Beamish as "like a whalebone corset of split hardwood," and surrounded by a rim of hazel, with a twisted willow boss. The malleable green wood would then tighten as it dried, giving the shield its strength and forming the rounded rectangles into a slightly "waisted" shape, like a subtle figure of eight. The University of York and University of Leicester have both released statements on the discovery.
Re:This is really an amazing discovery... (Score:4, Informative)
Xenophon describes whole armies equipped with them in Western Armenia. Others had grass shields with a similar reinforcement and slight figure 8 shape.
Re:This is really an amazing discovery... (Score:4, Interesting)
Xenophon describes whole armies equipped with them in Western Armenia. Others had grass shields with a similar reinforcement and slight figure 8 shape.
Most European shields were thought to have been made of either plywood or planks glued together at the edges and faced back and front with 3mm rawhide. This is well documented, largely due to the Scandinavian's obsession with sacrificing large quantities of captured weapons by throwing them into bogs. The plywood construction was thought to have been lost after the fall of the Roman empire until a couple of these shields were found in Norway and another in Germany which additionally was edged with a screen of braided grass. Which was a complete surprise since nothing of the sort is depicted in contemporary art or mentioned in contemporary texts other than a single sentence in a 12th century Norwegian law mandating plywood shields. This picture contains the grand total of the three original shields found by archeologists that date from the year 1000 to about 1250 or so that still survive in museums:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals... [pinimg.com]
This is the same as archaeologists 3000 years from now trying to reconstruct the equipment of 21st century armies while having only to having two AK-47s and a Steyer AUG rifle to go on, in that case they'd be unaware of the M4 which is one of the most heavily used combat rifles of our time. The fact that this shield is made of bark makes this shield quite unique and interesting. An even more interesting question is how long were shields like this made and used? Into the dark ages? The Middle ages? The Renaissance? It just brings into focus how big the gaps in the find material for any kind of organic objects are (due to decomposition) and even non-organic metal objects (due to metal recycling).
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Because while most of the weapons we dig up were made of metal, most of the weapons people were actually using were not made of metal, or were made with less metal than would be preferred for a weapon.
Consider; many armies were using grass shields of similar construction to these! Dried grass. It doesn't really stop a spear, but it prevents careful aiming, and if you know what you're doing you can temporarily capture the spear by twisting the shield to hold it in place.
Also, because arrows are very expensiv
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If you had any clue about real life (not to mention weapons), a grass or straw shield does stop a weapon.
As in comparison to a a modern kevlar west versus a bullet, a grass/straw shield is the equivalent. No spear, sword or dagger goes through.
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You wave your hands about "real life," but then your analysis is entirely based on making a false analogy and just assuming it would be equivalent.
Greek writings give detailed accounts of the battles, of the effectiveness of different weapons against each other in real life. I'm not talking about "look at the weapon and guess," I'm talking about, lean on the actual first-person accounts to determine the effectiveness.
A hoplite has a sturdy spear with a large metal point. It will go right through a grass shi
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Western Armenia isn't in Europe.
Leicester (Score:2)
It would be nice if they said in the summary where this place is other than just "Europe." Answer: a city in England.
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It would be nice if they said in the summary where this place is other than just "Europe." Answer: a city in England.
Unfortunately exact locations usually only serve as an invitation to looters to scour the sites at night with metal detectors and steal artefacts to sell on the black market to private parties who lock the stuff up in underground vaults in Switzerland as an 'investment'. Therefore archaeologists tend to avoid giving exact locations. This kind of stuff is much better off in museums being studied by scientists than it is locked up in an investment vault or private collection.
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Unfortunately exact locations usually only serve as an invitation to looters to scour the sites at night"
I didn't mean that exact- just what country we are talking about. Like many, I had no idea Leicestershire was a city in England, Britain :) It doesn't have much immediate name recognition.
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The town is Leicester, with -cester being derived from the old Latin castrum. Leicester thus is "the fortress on the Leir", where Leir is the old brittonic name of the River Soar.
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scour the sites at night with metal detectors and steal artefacts to sell on the black market
Metal detectors... to search for bark shields???
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The Guardian is a British newspaper, so their target audience don't need to be told. Blame the sub-"editor", and the general sub-"editing" culture of /., for accepting an abbreviated quote from the source instead of an actual summary.
PS, FWIW Leicester is the standard example of a British placename that no-one can pronounce correctly without being taught. It's a homophone of "Lester".
Amazing Discovery (Score:2)
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imagine if the random chunk of historically significant preserved bark shield you found wasn't in fact a shield, but just a piece of god damn tree bark. if it was me, i'd pass that peer review around for a few years too.. it's a pretty bold claim.
whenever i dig i find oddly shaped pieces of rocks and wood everywhere, but i would never suspect such an object was significant. you'd figure possessing the kind of trained eye it takes to spot stuff like that, you'd constantly be questioning yourself.
i personal
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The best pictures I've found are here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sc... [dailymail.co.uk]
The archaeologists drawing of the front and back give a pretty good idea of the general shape and how much they found. The pieces really do look like many of the metal and wooden shield that have been found. It is a flat-ish piece of bark, painted on the front, a central handle on the back, a hole and a "cup" around the handle and about the size of other shields used throughout history. It was also damaged by spear tips so I think it is
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It's a "boss" - the indentation in (or through) the shield which houses the hand and protects it from the nasty people on the other side of the shield is called a "boss". Not all designs of shield have them - some have a fist grip internally, and an elbow- or forearm- pad for the user to support the shield.
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That sucks. When my youngest sister was an archaeology student she had some friends from the local archaeological society round for a garden party, and they saw something interesting in the garden. A small dig turned up the oldest find ever in the town, a lower Palaeolithic handaxe (of type E in the Wymer classification, whatever that means). The axe is now in the local museum. The garden is still allowed to be used for gardening.
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It's also generally untrue. You might not be able to build your dream extension to replace your garden with bricks, or you might have to support the extension on piles instead of wall trenches (more expensive, but very do-able). But the system is designed to not destroy people and developments because if it did, then people would try to circumvent it by destroying sites rather than recording them. Which would be counter-productive.
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And that's where . . . (Score:2)