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Rectangular Shields in the Ancient Near East

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Rectangular Shields in the Ancient Near East IranicaAntiqua, vol. L, 2015 doi: 10.2143/IA.50.0.3053518 A SHIELD-BEARER FROM SIALK: RECTANGULAR SHIELDS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST BY Inna N. MEDVEDSKAYA (Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg, Russia) Abstract: The focus of this article are rectangular shields depicted on ancient Near Eastern reliefs and painted objects from the second millennium and the beginning of the first millennium B.C. The article considers the rectangular woven shields indicated by the brickwork pattern on the reliefs or by the chessboard on paintings. In the beginning of the first millennium B.C., as to judge from Assyrian reliefs, the rectangular woven shields were used only in the countries of Ancient Iran. Comparison of these shields depicted on the reliefs of Sargon II, on painted Greek Geometric pottery and on the vessel from Sialk B (Iran) confirms the dating of the painted pottery from Sialk B cemetery to the 2nd half of the 8th century B.C., as was offered by the author earlier. Keywords: Assyria, Greece, Sialk B, reliefs, woven shields, vase painting. The Sialk B cemetery is one of the most important archaeological sites of pre-Achaemenid Iran. It is the one (as well as the site Hasanlu) that serves as a base for solving chronological problems, discovering the ori- gins and cultural relations of the Iranian sites of the first millennium B.C. The Sialk B cemetery was investigated and published by R. M. Ghirshman in 1930s (Ghirshman 1939). The chronology of Sialk B is still the subject of discussions, varying from the 10th to the 7th century B.C. One of the reasons for its dating by the 2nd half of the 8th century B.C. is the style of vase painting in Sialk B (Medvedskaya 1986). It is worth noticing that the style of Sialk B vase painting is not found anywhere else in the archaeo- logical sites of ancient Iran. The Sialk B vase painting consists of four structural elements: geometric ornament, human and animal figures in silhouette technique, the metope- triglyphs system (ornamented girdles of interchanging panels with images separated from one another by ornamental compartments / triglyphs), and the filling ornament around the silhouette of human and animal figures as 97513.indb 159 23/02/15 10:17 160 I.N. MEDVEDSKAYA its fourth element. Of course, the separate elements, listed above, can be found in vase paintings of different cultures including the Iranian one. However, the combination of all four elements forms the structure of Sialk B vase painting (mainly on the teapots and goblets). This structure was formed and developed in Greece. It was here that by 760s the ultimate shape of date of the Late Geometric style of the Attic school was formed. Between the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. the Geometric style was replaced by the Orientalizing style, a principally different one. The difference between Greek and Sialk B vase painting is obvious. However a comparison of pottery paintings reveals not only structural unity of the Greek and Sialk images, but also discloses secondary details, that testifies to the traditional approach to the animated and ornamental paintings (hind legs of the ungulate animals are depicted by parallel lines, and there are “hanging” triangles linked to the upper metope frame over the croups, dot rosettes, wavy stripes on the handles of vessels, and crosses inside circles at bottoms of vessels). Phrygian vase painting was also influ- enced by the Attic vase painting style, but it was developing in the differ- ent direction, getting closer to Orientalizing style. The Sialk vase painting follows more precisely the structure and principles of Greek Geometric style (Medvedskaya 1986: 89-120). In connection with the dating of painted Sialk B pottery a shield-bearer depiction on one of the vessels from that cemetery bears a great impor- tance. There is a warrior with a dagger over the belt, a spear in his left hand and a rectangular shield in the right one (the shield would be held in his left hand, and the pike would be in his right one if in the attacking posi- tion) depicted. The shield is painted with a chessboard pattern (Ghirshman 1974/77: Taf. 26, 6) (Pl. 5a). Usually shields in the Ancient Near East were made of weakly persis- tent organic materials, that is why the main source of information are their depictions on the stone reliefs, ivory objects, and different painted wares including pottery. Metal shields of that epoch are rarely discovered. More often bronze umbos of conical shape originally attached as rule to the center of the shields made from organic materials are found. The shields were probably made of wicker, perhaps reed or osier, wooden narrow plates, tied together by means of horizontal metal bands in zigzag pattern. Such shields were depicted by the narrow vertical stripes (Madhloom 1970: 57, Pl. XVII: 1, XXVIII: 10-12, 16) (Pl. 2). This was 97513.indb 160 23/02/15 10:17 A SHIELD-BEARER FROM SIALK 161 the way of depicting handy shields as well as high siege-shields that were placed on the ground and defended the warrior from head to feet; they are known since the third millennium B.C. (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 3; LXIV: 32, 32 a 36, 37, 41, 59, 71, 72; Madhloom 1970: Pl. L, 3). Sometimes shields of hide were used. In that case, the shield surface on the relief remained smooth or void of ornamentation or painting. But in the second millennium B.C. Egyptian leather-covered shields were painted. Besides the shields mentioned above, woven shields were in use in the second and first millennium B.C. On the stone reliefs such shields were indicated by the brickwork pattern, while the chessboard pattern was their equivalent in paintings only. Both ways of depicting woven shields existed as early as the second millennium B.C. on the Egyptian reliefs and products made in Egypt (14th - 13th centuries B.C.) (Pl. 1: 6-7, 11-13, 17, 19). In the begin- ning of the first millennium B.C. the depictions of wicker shields in brick- work pattern are found only on the Assyrian reliefs of the 8th century B.C., and chessboard pattern shield images are painted on pottery (see below). It is not completely clear how centuries later that depicting tradition was brought to Assyrian carvers and the ceramists of Central Iran. In the second millennium B.C. depictions of variously shaped shields can be found in three areas of the Ancient Near East: 1. In Egypt hand rectangular shields with round or sharp upper edges were used, dating back as early as the third millennium B.C. (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 8). Wooden models of similar shields and wooden warrior statuettes with similar shields are dated by the beginning of the second millennium B.C. (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 9-10, 11-14) (Pl. 1: 8). Wooden shields were covered with leather and painted, sometimes imi- tating animal skin. There are numerous depictions of such shields in wall paintings of Egypt in the early second millennium B.C. (Gorelik 1993: 178, Pl. LXIII: 15-22). On the 13th century B.C. reliefs rectan- gular shields with rounded upper edge are depicted by the brickwork pattern, meaning woven facture of the shield (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 47-48) (Pl. 1: 6-7). 2. In Syro-Palestinian region rectangular shields were in use as early as the 18th-17th centuries B.C. (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 50, graffiti in burial P3, Jericho). In the 14th - 13th centuries B.C. rectangular shields of Syro-Palestinian warriors were depicted by Egyptian artists as chess- board pattern on the painted items (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 59-60) 97513.indb 161 23/02/15 10:17 162 I.N. MEDVEDSKAYA (Pl. 1: 12, 13), and as brickwork pattern on the reliefs (Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 61) (Pl. 1: 11). In the 8th - 7th centuries B.C. the “corrup- tion” of the chessboard pattern as a slanting grid occurs (frescoes at Til-Barsip, Phoenician silver bowls, Cyprus: Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIV: 29-30, 42). Since the 13th century B.C. round shields came into use in that region. It is supposed that such kind of shields was invented in Aegean region and in the south of Central Europe—Sea peoples moth- erland, and was brought to Palestine by one of them—Philistines who settled in that region (Pl. 1: 10,16). 3. In Asia Minor since ancient times figure-of-eight shields were used (Pl. 1: 17-18, 20; 21-23 gold fibulae imitating the form of figure-of- eight shield: 23rd c. B.C.). In the 13th - 12th centuries B.C. borrowing of the shield-types from neighboring regions obviously in the course of strengthening military contacts has started. Figure-of-eight shields of Hittite origin came to the Syro-Palestinian region (Megiddo: Gorelik 1993: Pl. LXIII: 63a, 64) (Pl. 1: 9, 15). The Hittites obtained rectangular woven shields accord- ing to Egyptian depictions (Pl. 1: 19), but they did not have round ones. Round shields brought to Egypt by the Sea peoples in the 13th century B.C. were supplemented by the round shields of Syro-Palestinian pris- oners of war, and probably, were accepted for a while as military equip- ment by the Egyptians. But round shields usage didn’t last long there, and after the reign of Ramses III in the 12th century B.C. they are not in use anymore (Borchhardt 1977: E 28). However, as the whole, Egyptian depicting shields ceased ever since.
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