Just when I go and stick my neck out with the assertion that there is no evidence of two layer (plywood) shields, this comes in on the Regia e-group:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">thought you might be interested in this evidence that shields were made of two layers of wood with the grain at right-angles. this comes from the Hastings list.
Beo gesund
Edwin
Subj: [Hastings] Trondheim shield news
Hello again good people!
As we say here in Sweden 'När man talar om trollen så står de i farstun'
(Speak of the devil...). Today, after a whole year I finally succeeded in
getting in touch with the archaeologist that unearthed the bloody thing!
He told me a lot, here is an abstract:
The shield was found at Trondheim bygrund in 1975 in a context dated to the
11th and 12th centuries. It was found in what was then a backyard in a
refusal heap with other discarded objects, it had obviously been thrown away
as worn-out and useless.
It is made up by two layers of boards, the upper layer skewed 90º against
the lower.
The boards in each layer are approximately 5 – 6 mm thick. One must
keep in mind though that the shield parts were waterlogged by the time of
the recovery, it could thereby be estimated that the shield probably had a
total thickness of close to/less than 10mm.
A series of holes along what is left of the rim implicates that it initially
was covered and/or had the rim reinforced, possibly by rawhide that
deteriorate quite fast in the ground.
The height is roughly 1 m, and at the widest point it measures approximately
0.5 m.
The wood in the shield was never more closely examined; it is therefore not
possible to say which kind of wood that was used.
That's all for now, now I just will have to apply to the museum of
antiquities in Trondheim, raise some funds and travel up there.
I'll keep you posted
/Ny Björn</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I should know better by now....
)
