Mysterious Mamluk Shoulder Disk? -- myArmoury.com

Bennison N · Posted: Tue 19 Mar, 2013 10:35 am Post subject: Mysterious Mamluk Shoulder Disk?

Hi all.

The picture below is a page from a Mamluk Furussiyya (Islamic Knightly Arts) treatise.

It shows the technique for shooting the bow on horseback without having to sheathe the sabre. It also shows the use of an arrow guide. A pretty impressive technique. The sabre is held by a lanyard/wrist strap, and lain across the top of the forearm.

This picture apparently stirs quite heated debate, as there is what appears to be a buckler balancing on the Mamluk's shoulder. Not everyone agrees, as the placement is strange, and most Mamluk shields of this time were much larger, an average of 50cm to cover across the entire chest.. The size of the disk would certainly be a buckler, and everything else in the picture is of comparatively accurate size. It was my understanding, though, that Mamluks hung their shields on their hip, or on the saddle.

The drawing could possibly be showing a buckler of the rattan rolled with a steel boss Kalkan type.

What do you guys think? Buckler or not?