Busacca Gallery

Description:

🔥 Consignment 🔍 We need to check the availability 🌈 ** African Antique shield Weapon, Arusi Shield 19th century Origin: Ethiopia. This unique item is a rare find, made from a Hippopotamus and some times Rhinoceros hide , This "African shield" is from Ethiopia, "Arrusi". This is a rare piece of African art. The Ethiopian warriors are renowned for their bravery, ferocity and hunting skills. Approximately 27" long and 28" wide. each shield is hand crafted and special.

Reference:

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield

A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or by glancing a blow to the side of the shield-user. Shields vary greatly in size, ranging from large shields that protect the user's entire body to small shields that are mostly for use in hand-to-hand combat. Shields also vary a great deal in thickness; whereas some shields were made of thick wooden planking, to protect soldiers from spears and crossbow bolts, other shields were thinner and designed mainly for glancing blows away (such as a sword blow). In prehistory, shields were made of wood, animal hide, or wicker. In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, shields were used by footsoldiers and mounted soldiers. Even after the invention of gunpowder and firearms, shields continued to be used. In the 18th century, Scottish clans continued to use small shields, and in the 19th century, some non-industrialized peoples continued to use shields (e.g. Zulu warriors).



The oldest form of shield was a protection device used to block attacks by hand weapons, such as swords, axes and maces or missiles like spears and arrows. Shields have varied greatly in construction over time and place. Sometimes shields were made of metal, but wood or animal hide construction was much more common; wicker and even turtle shells have been used. Many surviving examples of metal shields are generally felt to be ceremonial rather than practical, for example the Yetholm-type shields of the Bronze Age or the Iron Age Battersea shield. The shield was used to make the Greek Phalanx formation.

Size and weight varied greatly. Lightly armored warriors relying on speed and surprise would generally carry light shields that were either small or thin. Heavy troops might be equipped with large heavy shields that could protect most of the body. Many had a strap called a guige that allowed it to be slung over the user's back when not in use or on horseback. During the 14th-13th century BC, the Sards or Shardana, working as mercenaries for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, utilized either large or small round shields against the Hittites. The Mycenaean Greeks used two types of shields: the "figure eight" or "fiddle" shield, and a rectangular type, the "tower" shield, rounded on the top. They were made of wood and leather, and were of such a large size that a warrior could completely cower behind his shield. The Ancient Greek hoplites used a round, bowl-shaped wooden shield called an aspis. Examples of German wooden shields c350 BC - 500 AD survive from Weapons sacrifices in Danish bogs.



The heavily armored Roman legionaries carried large shields (scuta) that could provide far more protection, but made swift movement a little more difficult. The scutum originally had an oval shape, but gradually the curved tops and sides were cut to produce the familiar rectangular shape most commonly seen in the early Imperial legions. Famously, the Romans used their shields to create a tortoise-like formation called a testudo in which entire groups of soldiers would be enclosed in an armoured box to provide protection against missiles. Many ancient shield designs featured incuts of one sort of another. This was done to accommodate the shaft of a spear, thus facilitating tactics requiring the soldiers to stand close together forming a wall of shields.