Detail of the Roman Scutum from Dura-Europos in the Yale University Art Gallery, October 2013

Scutum (Shield)
mid-3rd century A.D.

Painted wood and rawhide

105.5 × 41 × 30 cm (41 9/16 × 16 1/8 × 11 13/16 in.)

Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos

1933.715

This is the only known surviving example of the semicylindrical shield known as a scutum, used by Roman legionaries and known from literary sources. Found flattened, in thirteen pieces, and missing its umbo (central boss), the shield was reconstructed by the Yale-French excavation team. The painted decoration reflects Roman iconography of victory, including an eagle with a laurel wreath, winged Victories, and a lion.


Culture: Syrian, Dura-Europos

Period: Roman

Classification: Arms and Armor

Provenance: Excavated by the Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos (Tower 19), present-day Syria, 1928–37; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

Bibliography:

Michael I. Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europos and Its Art, 1st (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), 4, pl. 3:1, ill.

Clark Hopkins, The Discovery of Dura-Europos, ed. Bernard Goldman (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), 187, ill.

Alan Shestack, ed., Yale University Art Gallery Selections (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1983), 16–17, ill.

Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 273, ill.

Simon T. James, The Excavations at Dura-Europos,1928 to 1937: Final Report VII, 7 (London: The British Museum Press, 2004), xxix 182–83, no. 629, pl. 10, fig. 106, 107.

Lisa R. Brody and Gail Hoffman, eds., Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity (Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, 2011), 325, pl. 5, fig. 2.2, 2.5.

Jennifer Chi and Sebastian Heath, eds., Edge of Empires: Pagans, Jews, and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos, exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2011), 40, 56, no. 5, ill. cover detail , fig. 2–30.

Simon T. James, Rome and the Sword: How Warriors and Weapons Shaped Roman Histoy (London: Thames and Hudson, 2011), 136, ill.

Blair Fowlkes-Childs and Michael Seymour, The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019), 188, no. 133.

Text from: artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/5959