Rus' rectangular shields

[CarlL]

oops missed out this one, https://combatarchaeology.org/new-study-on-shields-and-hide/
which suggests that early Danish, as in 350BC / BCE, may be rectangular shields, see pictorial diagram in brief article.
CarlL

[CarlL]

There is an interesting article on development of Slav shields and their interaction with their neighbours and borrowing from others technology of shields. see
https://en.topwar.ru/174487-slavjane-vi-viii-vv-so-schitom.html
CarlL

[CarlL]

I am not sure this will help but there is a discussion of the Rus in Arabic sources in this dissertation (of some 220 pages) which I have not read.
see https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30851659.pdf

CarlL

[Swampster]

I am not sure if likes of https://journal.ivinas.gov.ua/pwh/article/view/216
would help; (is this one you have already considered? apologies if so) as the summary notes:

CarlL

This Ukrainian paper is interesting for me because of the illustrations. I guess that is a good sample of the available sources and few (if any) are from the Rus' lands until the 13th century. There are quite a few Polish and at least one British.

I'm not that familiar with Leo, but on a quick look through, he seems to use thureos mostly when talking about ancient practice e.g. xiv 91
He does use it to describe the Slavs' shields but says they formerly used it, and he is talking about Slavs on his side of the Danube, so not necessarily of use for all Slavic areas. How 'formerly' is he talking - perhaps it was back a few hundred years when inhabitants of what became Slavic regions were using the thureos.
One of his uses does seem to be equating the thureos with the 2nd C. AD scutum forming testudo - since this is where the four-sided bit is used whereas elsewhere he describes the thureos as being oblong but curved, he doesn't leave us on very secure ground!

I think if I were to do my Rus' army now, I might be tempted to go with a mix of round and kite shields. SInce I have done the Heath style rectangular shields, I shall console myself that they _may_ be right but certainly do look neat

[Andreas Johansson]

Thanks, Carl

Well, I guess all that goes to confirm that archaeological evidence for rectangular Rus' shields is lacking.

I said earlier in this thread that "It's a bit of a shame if there's little evidence for Rus' rectangular shields, because it'd be a handy way of telling them apart from "proper" Norsemen." On the flip side the harder they are to tell apart the more justified morphing is ...

Though the tall shields Leo the Deacon describes cannot very well have been typical Scandinavian round shields. The least exotic explanation would probably be Byzantine or Byzantine-style oval shields - by Svyatoslav's day the Rus' must've been well familiar with them.

[Andreas Johansson]

Wikipedia cites Grotowski's Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints for a claim that there are 11C depictions of kite shields from Kievan Rus', which might be early enough to count as "Rus" rather than "Early Russian" in WRG currency, but looking through the book the closest thing I find is that St Demetrios is depicted with a kite shield in a 11C panel now in the Cherson Museum in Sevastopol. Nothing is said about provenance, but in a book about Byzantine art that rather implies it's of Byzantine rather than Rus' origin.

Still, it's obviously likely that the Rus' did adopt kite shields during the the 11C, just like about everyone else in Europe - unless they indeed used them already back in the 10C.


On a completely different tack, I do find this whole exercise has sapped my own motivation to do a Rus' army, which I'd been considering. Without the distinctive rectangular shields, it's less clear why I should get a new army rather than paint up the vikings I've got lying about and call them Rus' if I want to play the latter. I've certainly morphed worse even if we're thinking about 11C Rus' who by rights ought have kite shields and more Byzantine influences.

[Swampster]

On a completely different tack, I do find this whole exercise has sapped my own motivation to do a Rus' army, which I'd been considering. Without the distinctive rectangular shields, it's less clear why I should get a new army rather than paint up the vikings I've got lying about and call them Rus' if I want to play the latter. I've certainly morphed worse even if we're thinking about 11C Rus' who by rights ought have kite shields and more Byzantine influences.

Thanks for the info.
I would also now think twice about doing specific Rus' though now I have them I shall keep using them. One of the things which first made me suspicious is that Polish sources point at kite shields, though early evidence is worse than for the Rus'. Heath, though, has rectangular shields. I had thought about using my Ru' as Early Poles too.

One feature that probably distinguishes the Rus' from their stay at home brethren is the white clothing - linen shirts rather than the variously dyed woolen. I was a bit wary that the lack of variation would make them boring, but I think it looks effective. I've since used the same for some others - Slavs, Balts etc.

[Andreas Johansson]

One feature that probably distinguishes the Rus' from their stay at home brethren is the white clothing - linen shirts rather than the variously dyed woolen.

That's a good point - though perhaps not good enough to rekindle my enthusiasm for getting a dedicated Rus' army.

(As the owner of a 13C Teutonic Order army, I'm no stranger to the fact that armies mostly in white can look quite good.)

[Swampster]

I found getting the look of (probably rather grubby) white linen easier than getting a look I liked for the TK.

A can of worms I shouldn't open is whether it would be more accurate to have TK with no caparison and probably without cloaks in battle. There are times, though, where the popular image is just too strong to resist.

[Erpingham]

Just thought I'd bring up this paper which has been published since our previous discussion.

Very interesting on the rarity of metal parts to shields and potential reconstructions.  Plenty of examples and pictures. Mainly about not-Rus, but it would appear that the Rus were prone to use typical Slavic oval and round boss-less shields and later took up kite shields.  No mention of square or rectangular shields.

[Andreas Johansson]

Just thought I'd bring up this paper which has been published since our previous discussion.

Finally got around to reading this now - thanks Anthony for bringing it to our attention.

It reinforces, I think, the probability that Leo the Deacon's tall shields were ovals rather than kites. Bossed shields do seem to have been commoner in Rus' than in most of the Slavic world, unsurprisingly given the Rus' elite's strong Scandinavian connections, but probably not the majority type.

I was a bit confused by the claim that bosses for mechanical reasons are strongly associated with circular shields. The Romans, frex, don't seem to have noticed.