it is not merely a question of whether or not we have learned to analyze in particular kinds of ways, or whether people are able to intellectualize about a variety of experiences. It is also about coming to believe in the possibility of a variety of experiences, a variety of ways of understanding the world, a variety of frameworks of operation, without imposing consciously or unconsciously a notion of norm - Elsa Barkley Brown
So sorry for the delay on art, it's been a busy few days as my day job is already ramping up for January (*cries*) BUT I do think a while back I had mentioned I built a shield for my undergrad so everyone, welcome to my tedtalk on Roman shields.
I will note, I did not keep the poster I made for this assignment which was dumb of me, so I can not provide all my sourcing on it, which pains me, but I will provide what I can remember.
The aim of this assignment was to make something 'historically accurate'. So that could mean you followed the ancient methods for building an object or you use modern methods to try and make something look as accurate as possible to ancient sources.
I ended up doing a bit of both, since some things you just can not do in an urban basement suite. But, the end result was touted around the department for GRS/Medi studies for several months so I consider it a win.
End product shot first obviously, then methods and madness below the cut as this is going to be a long post.
So. Roman Shields. Fun stuff. Traditionally, the bare bones of the shield would have been built from overlaying wooden boards and gluing them together (essentially creating nicer plywood than what we use today). This process allowed for the traditional and iconic rounded shield that is most often associated with Rome. You could bend it while the glue dried through weights, which made the process relatively easy.
Now, plywood that thin these days is expensive. So I opted to follow a design for what was likely a cavalry shield instead and have it flat. And just use modern plywood that was a bit too thick but within my broke student pricerange. While iconically the curved tower shield, the Scutum, is most often associated with Rome, all you have to do is look at various monuments to see that there was actually quite a diversity in shape, livery, and size.
I'd suggest the triumph pillars of Trajan or Marcus Aurelius for some examples, as the monuments were made to celebrate their military victories and as such display designs from the day. As well, one of my main sources was Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome by Phil Barker, which is a fabulously detailed sourcebook that compiled armor and weapons from all around that period of time. It's great, I still own it, would recommend it highly.
So, I took my plywood, and despite my best attempts and getting it a bit more oval, we ended up with this roundish lump. The piece of plywood I got actually ended up having a fault in it, so we had to give up on shaping it any further and leave it slightly fat. But that's ok. We must press on.
Next step was the boss. Now, my Dad was a hobby blacksmith. However, his forge setup was outside and it was winter in Canada so doing anything under heat was out. We opted instead to cold form the boss via a hammer and form in order to get that authentic feel.
This was a mistake.
The was by far the most labor-intensive part of the process and involved the two of us trading off while meticulously and carefully moving the metal back and forth. Since the metal was cold, it had a very high chance of just getting too thin from the shaping process and getting punctured. Which is why my parents house has four of five failed bosses tossed around the garage. But, after several days of hammering, we finally figured it out.
I skipped pictures for doing the hand-sewn linin lining over the wood. This is because I was swearing too much to do them. In reality, this step wasn't nearly as bad as the boss, but it was time-consuming as I am not practiced with a needle. It also wasn't really exciting.
But then came the rawhide. Now, I don't know if you've ever pulled an entire half of a cow out of a box and then just let it sit in your bathtub for 48hours to become pliable but it's a weird thing to do. Thankfully my fiancé was supportive and my other roommate at the time was in school for theatrical prop design, so they understood.
Historically, was it rawhide or finished leather? I found conflicting sources, and while it might come down to translation, I opted for rawhide. It's the stronger of the two, though it is susceptible to water. In reality, it was easier for me to just buy half a cow than the amount of finished leather that it would take to fully cover the face, so being the broke little student I was I opted for rawhide.
This was tough. Cutting the rawhide was difficult, and then came actually stretching it and securing it. Originally my plan was to use twine, but the twine I had wasn't actually strong enough and snapped halfway through. I ended up needing two other guys' help to stretch and hold the rawhide while I nailed it down. So I can't really use it for anything other than the cool factor now, but such is school life.
(Funny enough, not being experienced with leatherwork at all, I actually should have left more slack. As the rawhide dried it actually bent the shield forwards slightly! Which was a neat thing to discover.)
Welcome to my old living room! Once the rawhide was on and still damp, the next step was to essentially bake the whole thing after covering it with honey. I wish I had my listed sources, but I know at least one extant written piece describes the process of putting honey on a rawhide shield face and then leaving it in front of the fire to bake. This would help make it slightly more waterproof and was also one of the reasons why I opted for rawhide (had to show my train of thought for making the piece, so following a source was an easy way to do it.)
This took several days of rotating the shield in front of our little space heater. Thankfully the rawhide didn't smell, so our living room was just slightly honey-scented.
Now, This in total ended up taking several months to bring together, as I was in 4 other classes on top of this one. I did not end up having the time to paint it with traditional paints, and that's one thing I'd be interested in trying if I ever did this again. Because, while the honey coating did make this waterproof pretty well, it did not make for a good paint surface. If I ever did this again I'd love to see if ancient paint holds any better than modern compounds.
Additionally, I used some of the rawhide scraps to line the edges. This was not my original intent (Thus the jaggedness) but the paint was flaking to such a degree that a bit of edge protection was needed. If the weather had managed I had hoped to actually get some metal on there but it was snowing at this point so no dice.
I ended up designing the laurels off shield first in an attempt to not have it be crooked but that still happened despite my best efforts. Design and color are always up in the air for these sorts of things. I did copy a known pattern from the book I mentioned previously in this post, but color-wise I stayed with the traditional red, white, and yellow.
Handle-wise, I had to bolt on the shaped handle the morning this project was due, so I did not manage to get an accurate handle + armstrap setup, but that's ok. Still got my A+ so I'm happy.
Nowadays the shield is on display in my house and it's a great thing to pull when meeting new people. Once we move in the new year the hope is I can finally rig up a bolted to the wall display spot for it.
That's it! Back to art posting soon, I just felt bad it'd been a few days and wanted to fill the empty space.
