Original 11th century Slavic Shield, part 1

We're here at the Archaeological Museum in Brandenburg an der Havel and thanks to the kind support by the museum staff, Ingo and I have the opportunity to examine these remains of a possible shield from the late 11th century which was found in a Slavic context. So if this is indeed a shield it's quite unique in several respects. First of all there are very few shields that are left from Slavic excavation context. Actually there are only like two or three remains none of which are as complete as this as the fragments of this shield here and it consists of two layers of wood. So if I go down here and zoom into it you can see the two layers of wood that make up the shield. So here you can very nicely see that the board is made up of two layers. The whole thing is rather thin only seven millimeters in total in thickness and that is not very surprising for shields or at least not uncommon. The shields from Dura Europos in Syria, late Roman shields, they are about five to six millimeters. The shield from Stettin, the only surviving kite shield, is about seven millimeters in thickness. So in general you could say that shield boards are a lot thinner than you would usually suspect. Here are a couple of surviving shields or rather shield fragments that I compare to the Lensen shield. So this is the supposed Lensen shield from Lensen castle and this here is a shield that is also made from plywood two layers just like with the Lensen example and it comes from Trondheim in Norway. It's of oval shape as you can see and it is slightly domed and it has stitching around the edges which you can see here which possibly secured either an edging or a facing or according to a hypothesis of Arthur von Eschen stitching or seams could just simply been applied to shields to simply improve overall structural integrity. This is the surviving kite shield from Stettin in Poland and it consists of planks which are only seven millimeters thick. So with this one I'm quite positive that it must have had some kind of facing because these planks are as far as I know only butted together so that would simply not be strong enough. However this is plywood so the shield board would be stronger to begin with even if it's equally thin as this plank shield. Now the most remarkable feature of the Lensen shield is its edge. As you can see this edge which consists of strands of grass that now definitely is compressed is separate. It's not folding over the shield board. That was quite surprising for us to find out but it is attached to the shield board so it's an extension of the shield board and it's not an edging that covers the rim of the shield board. Okay so Ingo is now going to describe the structure and the way this the structure of the shield edge and how it may possibly have been made or rather our observations. That means the wood does not go further under this fiber layer. Holes are pierced into the edge. They are relatively clearly rectangular and probably pierced with such a pickaxe. You can see up here at one point how the traces of the pickaxe still cross at the corner of the section. Both at the edge of the shield and at the holes it doesn't look like the two layers of the wood would have pushed against each other. So that means the shield would have been originally flat. Otherwise the layers would have pushed against each other. Exactly. So we would actually expect directly at the edge that one layer pushes over the other when the shield would have been curved and that is actually not to be observed anywhere. Exactly. As for the binding material, which is described here in the publication as bast, you can see relatively clearly in some places that these are cut strips of a material that have beautiful straight edges. Show me one more time. Here, for example, you can look nicely at this cut edge. Okay, show me the cut edge again. And there was another one on the shield grid itself. You have another one here where you can see it wonderfully, this straight cut edge. You can see that well on this piece. And here we have a piece that is very interesting. It splits into two layers. You have a fibery base that stands out here, which is relatively thick. You have a top layer that is very thin. It looks a bit leathery. It has folds here. And this piece is placed in such a loop here. At first glance, it looks to me like weeding ribs. Complete weeding ribs that were cut into strips and then used here to bind the edge. So basically the ribs were peeled off from the tree. He cut them into strips and then used them to bind this edge. So here we have a willow twig. A little branch that Ingo has just cut off one of our trees. Right, Ingo? Yes, over there at the little lake. This willow in German we call Silberweide. So silver, willow. And now Ingo is going to demonstrate what he thinks was the material that was used to tie, to lace the grass material to the edge of the shield. Okay, I'm just cutting off a piece of the twig. You can also do this with bigger branches. And if you do it right after cutting it, you can easily just slice the outer layer. And then either roll it a bit or beat it a bit with some end of the knife. And then you can easily peel off the bark like that. You have to watch out if you have little other twigs or leaves, the rib will break. Knospen? Yeah. Whatever Knospen means in English. Whatever it means. But afterwards you can just peel it off like that. And this only works with a freshly cut off branch. Yeah, exactly. You can't do it with old branches or old twigs. And this is very easy to do. And now you can just slice or rip it, tear it into ribbons. And those are very good for binding things. Super cool. Yeah, this was where another twig ended. So the rest is very, very stable. And you can use it for binding. And you see the inside has this inner layer of... These fibers? These fibers. And then you have a very thin outer layer, which is the real bark. Yeah, the outer surface of the original twig or branch. If you bend it like this, I don't know if you see it, this will get these foldings. Okay, like we saw on the shield. We observed on the original shield. Which look a bit like old leather or something like that. Exactly. I see. So these wrinkles that are produced by folding or bending the ribbon or the strap. And now it's a very flexible material. As soon as it's drying, it's getting harder. And to some extent, you can dry it now, put it into water later and use it again because it's getting soft again if it's getting wet. Okay, if you... But you have to do the peeling immediately after cutting it, when it still has the original wetness of the tree. Okay, so if we wanted to use it for lacing the shield edge, then we would have to ensure that it's wet. Yeah, exactly. And the best time to do this is in spring. To harvest the branches, you mean? To harvest the branches for peeling off the bark. Oh, okay. It works best in spring. Okay, good. And when you say spring, that's what? March, April, May? When it's beginning to get leaves. I see, okay. So around May. Okay, so the tree will not like it. Yeah. Okay, well, thank you very much. You're welcome.