Terrs. The Omani Battle Shield. A Buckler.

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by ariel

So the attacking blade is supposed to hit the protrusion of the shield, slide down and get trapped under the brass fitting?

This is interesting: is it really functional? Shouldn't the space between the fitting and the shield be bigger? It might be awfully difficult to squeeze the blade in such narrow crack.

In some examples here the crack does not seem to exist at all, and the hide "rings" would seem to prevent sliding of the blade and some would seem to obliterate the crack altogether.


Or am I not getting something important?

Ariel,

The outer brass decoration is only a decorative anchor point for the inner bronze loop and buckle that hold the handle in place...nothing more, nothing less, except perhaps the notion of what the bronze decoration was intended to represent visually...one only has to handle the buckler to see and understand this...and those bucklers with cuts from swords are damaged at the rim and elsewhere on its surfaces...

Now best intentions for bragging rights and perhaps stories of local legend may be some peoples goals when defending with the buckler...simply to say hey look what I did in a freakish moment...but the design elements do not support this as a catch hook nor does it function as one

Gavin