Bronze Age Warfare by Richard Osgood

Author:Richard Osgood [Richard Osgood]
Language: eng
Format: epub

DEFENSIVE EQUIPMENT

Shields

Some of the finest examples of European Bronze Age armour are found in the panoply of defensive objects from the region. The warrior in central and eastern Europe could call upon shields, helmets, breastplates and greaves for protection (or for use in ceremonies). The sight of a warrior fully caparisoned in bronze armour and holding a gleaming sword would have been very impressive. It seems likely that shields would have been made from either leather or wood for actual combat. In terms of finds of such shields, we have examples from Wollmesheim and Mehrstetten in Germany (Coles 1962: 172). Thanks to poor pre-excavation survival conditions these shields are now only evident through the metal studs they originally featured. The Wollmesheim shield, the ‘type-find’ for this group, still retained fragments of the wood around the studs, enough to indicate that the original thickness of the shield was around 2cm. This shield was found in association with a leaf-shaped sword and socketed arrowheads. It has been suggested that the Mehrstetten shield, found in the 1905 excavation of a barrow, was around 80cm in diameter – some 30cm larger than the wooden example from Annandale described in Chapter Two. Both shields have been dated to the start of the Urnfield Period.

Several ‘U-notch’ shields (so-called after the U-shaped notch within the circular strengthening ribs present on the face of these shields) have been recovered from central Europe. Two were found in Ostprignitz, Germany, and were of fairly similar design to the Danish shield from Taarup Mose. The Pilsen-Jıˇkalka shield from Bohemia is another member of the U-notch group, though in this case the notch is more crescent-shaped. Found in 1869 around 0.5m away from the site of a hoard found a week previously, the shield has been assigned an early Urnfield date (Coles 1962: 162).

A further group of shields belong to the Nipperwiese class. These possess two annular strengthening ribs, without a notch, and have a handle riveted at the back. Nipperwiese shields have been found at Spalt in Bavaria and at Mainz and Bingen in Germany, alongside the type-site of Nipperwiese itself (now called Ognics) in Poland (Coles 1962: 162).

The Bingen shield, found in the River Rhine, is particularly interesting. A round shield of 393mm average diameter, it had lost one section of its rim which had broken away along a fracture and displayed other damage, including a tiny elliptical perforation that could have resulted from the thrust of a weapon tip (Needham 1979: 115). If so, it is perhaps of similar value to the Nipperwiese shield from Long Wittenham for indicating the use of these cast shields in combat alongside the probably more frequent use of sturdy organic-material variants.

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