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Os hoplite shield3/25/2023 48) points out, however, that a round shield boss does not necessarily mean a round shield. The Kaloriziki shield from Cyprus was probably not round, and Ognenova (1952, pp. 61–81) has reconstructed round shield bosses onto ‘Boeotian’ shields. While that seems unlikely, round bosses could certainly have been attached to the square shields that also appear in art at this time, and perhaps even the Dipylon shields. Graves are sometimes found with more than one boss, which Snodgrass thinks may have been mounted on the same shield (like Kaloriziki), but I disagree. I think the Kaloriziki reconstruction is incorrect, and that it is far more likely that multiple bosses equals multiple shields, especially when they are of a similar size. A grave at Mouliana had four bosses, each about 19cm across they are all bosses to protect central handgrips and cannot be seen as decorative extra bosses. The quantity simply points to the status of the warrior. Apart from warrior burials, a large number of shield bosses have been found at Olympia (Fellman 1984). Nearly all of these fall into the 900 to 700 date bracket, although there are some from the seventh century. Fellman sees these as being dedications from further afield in Europe, where single-grip shields with bosses continued to be used. He also points out that there were some areas of Greece that did not adopt hoplite shields and warfare in the seventh century. Achaea, for example, still used rectangular shields (the thureos) a couple of hundred years later, and so small, single-grip shields may still have been used in ‘backward’ parts of Greece. With the increased availability of bronze, shields with complete bronze facings first made their appearance in Crete in the eighth century. The idea possibly came from the Near East, where similar shields were also in use (Snodgrass 1965a, pp. The animal-head protome shield has a three-dimensional animal head in the centre of the shield, instead of a simple boss.
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