Antique Wooden Shield Can anyone Help -- myArmoury.com

Marc N

Hello Everyone I have an old Antique Wooden Shield I was hopeing to maybe get some help with. I can not find any information or pictures on the web that look even a little like this one. Thanks for any help

Stuart Quayle · Posted: Mon 10 Jan, 2011 1:35 pm Post subject: Shield

Hi Marc

This is a complete guess, but the device on the shield face looks very similar to a Hellenistic - Macedonian Star ala Philip of Macedon. Could this be an old replica of a Macedonian Aspis shield?

Regards
Stuart

Timo Nieminen · Posted: Mon 10 Jan, 2011 4:26 pm Post subject:

From the size and the pattern, it looks Ethiopian to me. I don't know what the typical Ethiopian grip looks like - I haven't seen the back of one. If you search google images for "Ethiopian shield", you should find plenty of ones with similar patterns. Many will be leather with the star pattern in metal ornamentation. Some are fabric covered, some are wooden, some are metal. About 1-2 feet in diameter, or a little less, looks typical for size.

The back of it looks like it could be a Moro shield, but it isn't a common type of grip - most have a central arm loop and a hand grip off to the side. This is much smaller than Moro round shields that I've seen, so it could be a central grip variation. The rest of the back, with the 4 ridges, is what looks Moro. I've never seen one with star shaped decoration on the front. I don't think this is likely to be Moro, but it's my next-best guess after Ethiopian.

Robert Coleman · Posted: Mon 10 Jan, 2011 8:07 pm Post subject:

This to me does look like a Moro shield. I have seen Moro shields with this style of decoration on them before (I do not believe that this is a depiction star, I believe that it is a sun symbol) and I will try to find pictures of similar pieces. If you get tired of looking at it I would be more than happy to add it to my collection.

Robert

Werner Stiegler · Posted: Tue 11 Jan, 2011 3:21 am Post subject:

Yes, this is a Moro shield.

Marc N · Posted: Tue 11 Jan, 2011 5:44 am Post subject: Thanks for the help guys!

Hello, thanks for the info I really think it is a Moro. I pulled up a few sites the back is without question and I found most of them have the same blunt tip on the front. thanks for all the help guys. does anyone know if there is a book I can get to help. I would still like to find out how old it is.