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What evidence is there for dark age shield decoration? Don't manuscripts show plain or really simple decoration, where does the idea of animals or knotwork come from?
>>3229637
I too am curious about this.
>>3229637
I feel that it's not crazy to speculate that people probably liked to decorate their shields if they could get paint to do so or were encouraged by a leader to adopt some sort of uniform scheme. I've also heard a theory that painted shields could hide the grain on a shield, but I don't think that was the reason for it.
Apparently there's a possible Viking shield (no boss, but it's where a shield would be in a burial) that has some intricate knotwork on it.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/shield/shield.html#Decoration
>Animals
Well, the Romans did it