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Originally Posted by Norman McCormick
Hi,
The photograph posted by Kubur does give some credence to the spear rest theory and I can understand the formation shield wall theory, seems plausible. The improvement of vision I'm not so sure about, I did try it but somehow it didn't feel right, the cutouts were in the wrong place when holding the shield with the grip in the vertical which was the position that seemed most natural.
Regards,
Norman.
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Here is a relevant extract from a book I have to hand ... "Man & his Handiwork" by the Rev. J G Wood 1886, that describes these shields and mentioning the visual aid aspect. The shield shown by Wood has large shallow cutouts, but another common form has much smaller, almost enclosed cutouts that clearly could not act as spear rests. Some images of this type from the internet are attached.
A possibility could be that two types of shields were produced by Beja tribes ... one for spearmen with large shallow cutouts and another for swordsmen with the small "spyhole" type ?
I think there are references elsewhere to these Beja shields and their usage, if I can find any I shall post them.