Sardinian Figurines, Particularly shields

Recently I've been looking at shields, with an eye to new projects of course. Always had a bit of interest in "Nuragic" Sardinia, and after a little poking through the books and Googling, I've come up with some a few images and some FASCINATING tidbits. And lots of questions, naturally!

First is a scan from Centuries of Darkness by James, et al., showing a drawing of 2 figurines (along with an Egyptian Sherdan carving) from an 1896 book by Maspero. The mongo horns on the right-hand figure are very spiffy, of course, but his shield struck me as a bit too Viking-like with that sort of cross-shaped effect. The shield on the left caught my eye, though, with an asymmetrical design--a band of several stripes leading from the boss to the left edge, and several curved vertical lines.

And I'd seen this fellow elsewhere...

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Ha, yes, found him in Sandars' "The Sea People". He seems to have lost his sword sometime in the last hundred years, poor bloke, but the shield is the same. A much better view of the horizontal band (wrapped around the edge) and curved lines, with studs at certain points.

But what on earth are those things sticking up at the top of the shield?? They look like sword hilts, and the points are just visible at the bottom! *Are* they swords?? Maces? Throwing sticks? Control levers? Anyone got a photo of the BACK of this dude??

In desperation for more photos, I started Googling.

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Oh, first an enlargement of the shield.

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Google only turned up 3 or 4 images of figurines, unfortunately. (Lots of photos of nuragic towers, though!) But one of them was our boy, in color and reversed, but from a slightly different angle and showing some very interesting details.

The curved lines are actually the outlines of raised round panels! The upper one is slightly smaller than the lower, making the boss off-center. These overlap at least 3 others, 2 small ones on the (shield's) left that are also overlapped by the band, and a large one to the right. Where the edges of the panels meet there are small circular studs. Can't quite make out if there are 2 studs at the right edge of the boss (if the panels don't quite meet) or only one (if they meet at the boss).

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So here's my sloppy drawing of the shield. The base is circular, with 5 rounded or circular overlapping panels and a wide horizontal band of 6 or 7 strips. Materials?? My guess is leather or hide, with bronze boss and studs. But there could be a wood core, and other parts could be bronze. The neat thing is that this can potentially be made from rather small pieces of leather or hide, glued and riveted together. Presumably it has a single vertical handgrip, judging by the way the warrior is holding it.

The rest of the warrior is great, too, and there are several other figures that show details of clothing and equipment. I might have to make another horned helmet, or 2 or 3! He's wearing body armor, with flaps coming over the shoulders very much like a later linothorax, the whole thing covered with narrow vertical lines. I think it's quilted fabric. There's a narrow belt around the middle. He seems to be wearing at least 2 tunics, with the hem of the inner one just visible. Greaves are quite common, though they could be wrappings or gaiters, I suppose. He has a collar or throat guard as well.

Some photos of the back would help!! Especially with those things behind his shield.

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This is another image I found on the Net. Mostly I love his helmet--dig those CURLY horns! That really looks like my Mycenaean type G sword, too. He also has armor, possibly quilted, though the shoulder area looks more checkered than just lines.

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Last one for the moment. Those of you with "The Bronze Age in Europe" will recognize this wacky guy. The caption blithely says his shield can be compared to a Mycenaean figure-8 shield, which is kind of silly considering he has FOUR EYES AND FOUR ARMS. Chang and Eng visit Sardinia? But significantly, each half of his double shield also has a couple doo-dads showing behind it, and again they look like sword hilts. WHAT is up with these?? (Edit: Heck, just noticed that you can even see rivet heads on those hilts! Yup, gotta be swords.) Aside from those, he again has interesting raised sections on shield(s), funky horns, greaves, collar, and quilted body armor.

That's about it for my research highlights. I've found a few more images, including a good one from Jeroen's site, and some drawings of armor parts in Osgood, Monks, and Toms "Bronze Age Warfare" which are just bizarre. But what I'd really love to see is a big book that shows LOTS of these nuragic figurines from interesting angles. Does such a thing exist?

Obviously a Sardinian impression is being added to my project list! Heck, I've already got better documentation than I do for late Mycenaean... If anyone can point me towards any information or photos I might have missed, I'll be very grateful!

Khairete,

Matthew

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Matt,
Have you seen the picture of this statue? Looks a bit different than the pics you posted, though the shield looks the same!:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vorticeassurdo/17305282/

Todd

Heh, maybe the sculptur was drunk when he saw the warrior?

Probably, finding it is another thing though

Maybe this book as some stuff?
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/used/List...L=Nuragic&Itm=3

Definately looks like they've got throwing swords attached to their shields. Interesting!

Funny how things coincide, the boat representations from this collection are being used by us as one of the justifications for a sewn plank boat with its animal (red deer skull) figurehead and flat bottom, much like a larger, fatter, cajun pirogue.

http://www.colonnedercole.it/isola/isola2_20.htm

Not that much different to the ships of the sea peoples.

Maybe the whole thing is meant to be a presentation scene, depicting the warrior with the arms he has seized in victory. In American archaeology, both the Maya and the Moche had very elaborate ways of making presentations to their leaders using the captured arms of vanquished foes. It could be something of that nature, making these little statuettes commemorative pieces, perhaps like trophies of a game. Just some speculation. It seems that actually storing your backup arms there would put them in a foolish amount of danger.

Cool, thanks, had not seen that one! Well, that's wild--he's almost identical to the 4-eyed guy, only with the proper number of body parts. Looks like he was made by the same craftsman. Has 4 swords behind one shield rather than 2 behind each of 2 shields!

THANK YOU! That'll help, I'm sure. I'll order it tonight and see if anyone in my family wants to wrap it up for me for Christmas, hee hee hee...

Whoa, Thanks, Edwin, there are several more new warriors in that collection of images! And a couple of guys that we know--hold on, this is interesting.

http://www.colonnedercole.it/isola/isola2_6.htm

http://www.colonnedercole.it/isola/isola2_1.htm

The first photo seems to be reversed again, like the color version above. Seems to be the same guy, also same as the one shown in Sandars. But are the greaves the same? Hard to tell. And the lines on the shield band are more vague.

The second one is obviously an older photo, matching the 1896 drawing from Maspero/James. This photo seems to be reversed, too. But his shield is NOT the same as that shown in the previous photo--you can clearly see the disc panel on the opposite side of the boss from the horizontal band, which is clearly not there on the other shield. Plus the one with the sword has no visible mouth, and the hilts behind the shield are just a little bump. Subtle differences in the legs, too. So I'd say we have 2 very similar figures here!

Oh, and any speculation as to why that boat you linked to looks like Noah's Ark?

Agreed! The spare swords at least could be trophies.

Well, thank you all very much!! I knew this would be helpful. Now I'm all hyper!

Matthew

Agreed! The spare swords at least could be trophies.

I don't think so, why would they be attached to the shield? Didn't Romans have short darts attached to the back of the shields to throw into the enemy, before engaging by sword? It could be something similar here.

I originally thought darts, too. What look like sword hilts to us could actually be feathers or leather vanes on the ends of throwing darts. That would make a lot more sense and on the back of the shield would be a handy place to carry them. Very easy to get to.

Hmm, yeah, kind of an odd place to display a trophy, but a logical one for missiles. But darn it, those REALLY look like sword hilts!! Gah, one look at the back of one of these guys, and the whole question would be solved, at least the What if not the Why... It would certainly be a little easier if I only had to make a couple little javelins, and not 3 or 4 extra swords for this impression!

Matthew