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Lew
18th April 2006, 10:06 PM
Hi Guys

I managed to pick this nice old shield up the other day.

http://cgi.ebay.com/EXCEPTIONAL-ETHIOPIAN-SHIELD-AFRICAN-WEAPON_W0QQitemZ6622195294QQcategoryZ4171QQssPageN ameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I think I did ok let me know what you think?


Lew
Tim Simmons
19th April 2006, 08:53 PM
To be perfectly honest with you I have only ever seen these shields on ebay. I have never seen or handled one since collecting. As the UK was quite heavily involved in Ethiopia I find that a little strange but one is always discovering new things. I am not able to form an opinion from the pictures I have seen since observing there appearance on ebay. How robust are they? What is the handle like? I am really looking forward to good pictures from you.
Lew
22nd April 2006, 02:49 AM
To be perfectly honest with you I have only ever seen these shields on ebay. I have never seen or handled one since collecting. As the UK was quite heavily involved in Ethiopia I find that a little strange but one is always discovering new things. I am not able to form an opinion from the pictures I have seen since observing there appearance on ebay. How robust are they? What is the handle like? I am really looking forward to good pictures from you.

OK Tim

Here are some better pics. That piece of leather under the small loop is an old repair covering a small crack in the shield.

Lew
Tim Simmons
22nd April 2006, 10:36 AM
Well it looks like a jolly smart addition to your ever growing collection. You must have a fair few shields from the horn of Africa. Nice :cool: .
Wodimi
23rd April 2006, 06:34 PM
Hello Lew,

I think your shield comes from the Dorse, a subgroup of the Sidamo, living in southern central Ethiopia. A nice pice, but may be not so old than the normal leather ones of this group. I would think around 1950.
Attached you can see my similar example.

Wolf
Jim McDougall
24th April 2006, 04:40 AM
Nicely done Wodimi!!! Thank you for posting that and detailing the probable tribal origin. Could not find anything similar enough in the apparantly very limited shield resources here, and now I can add this (as well as sleep tonite!!:) It drives me crazy when something is so close but I cant find it!
All the best,
Jim
Luc LEFEBVRE
26th April 2006, 09:34 PM
Nice exemple, I have one from the same region, made of leather:

http://lulef.free.fr/html/amhara.html

Luc