only an Ajax could carry it. Both the tower and the figure-of-eight shields would
have been far too cumbersome to have been of any use in a chariot.
The earliest shields found in temperate Europe and the British isles are three
organic specimens (two wooden and one leather) that were preserved in the
moors of Ireland. They have been carbon dated to the middle of the second
millennium BC.^113 Bronze shields were not produced anywhere in western Eurasia
until ca. 1300 BC, and the eighty-six that have been found have now been
published by Marion Uckelmann.^114 According to Uckelmann, these bronze
shields were typically circular, were hammered from a single metal sheet, usually
have a diameter between 50 and 70 cm, usually weighed between 1.5 and 2.5 kg,
and were held by a hand-grip in the center of the inner surface. Although the bronze
shield became popular in temperate Europe, it did not replace the leather shield
in Greece. The early bronze shields (from the Urnfield period) come from the
Carpathian basin, southern Germany and a dozen from southern Scandinavia.
Somewhat later, from the first millennium BC, are several dozen found in Britain,
where they were frequently dedicated and deposited at the edge of wetlands, perhaps
as a votive offering to keep the wetland from encroaching on arable soil.^115 An
in corporebronze shield has yet to be found in western Europe (France and the
Iberian peninsula).
Bronze corselets made their appearance in Greece somewhat later than did
weapons, boar’s-tusk helmets and leather shields. No evidence for corselets has
been found in Grave Circles B and A. Although leather or linen corselets may
have been worn through most of the LH I period, metal was apparently added by
the period’s end, when the conquest of Crete took place. In the Near East the chariot
crewman wore a tunic to which were sewn hundreds of bronze scales. In Greece
corselets were normally plate armor rather than scale armor. A recent study by
Marianne Mödlinger has brought together the evidence for bronze corselets in
Greece and in temperate Europe.^116 The earliest evidence anywhere in Europe
comes from Dendra, a few km from Mycenae. Among the grave goods in Grave
8 at Dendra was a piece of bronze armor for the right shoulder, and the burial
dates to the LH II period. Slightly later is the complete panoply from Grave 12,
dating to the beginning of LH IIIA (ca. 1400 BC). The panoply included greaves
and a corselet consisting of fifteen pieces of bronze, which were held together by
leather cords and protected the wearer from the neck to the mid-thighs. Series of
small holes along the rims show that the bronze plates must have been lined with
leather or linen. The corselet is estimated to have weighed at least 15 kg. In 1995
excavations at Thebes discovered fragments of two more corselets, dating ca. 1300
BC.^117 These corselets, as best they can be reconstructed, seem to have offered
the wearer more flexibility and mobility than did the Dendra corselet. Bronze bands
that may have been elements of plate corselets have also been found at Nichoria,
Phaistos and Mycenae.
Linear B tablets both at Knossos (the Sc series) and at Pylos (Sh series)
are inscribed with ideograms for corselets. The ideograms have occasionally
been seen as indicating caparisons for protecting the chariot horses, but Crouwel’s
comprehensive analysis confirmed the identification with a corselet.^118 Because
Militarism in Greece 201