Danum shield
The excavations investigated the city's Roman fort, Danum, ahead of the construction of the Inner Ring Road.
[1]: 247 After 87 AD the fort was reconstructed on the same site to house a larger garrison made up of soldiers who had by then been withdrawn from Caledonia.
[2]: 20, 39 Beneath the cellar floor a layer, a few centimetres (approx one inch) thick, was found that proved to be the remains of a bonfire, possibly associated with the abandonment of the fort.
The remains of the Danum shield were discovered close to the edge of the bonfire layer, lying on a north-south orientation.
[1]: 247, 253 The charcoal preserved details of three layers of wood used to form the board of the shield and also a black, vitrified, vesicular material that was thought to be the remains of a leather outer covering.
[1]: 247 The shield was photographed in situ with a gamma camera in an attempt to discern the arrangement of any metal fittings on the front face.
The shield was considered too delicate to recover by hand excavation so was lifted in a single block, encased in plaster and weighing 30 long hundredweight (1,500 kg).
[3] The Danum shield has been dated to the late 1st century/early 2nd century and attributed to a Roman auxiliary soldier (auxiliarius), though because of the variation in equipment among these forces this identification cannot be certain.
[4][1]: 264, 269 Archaeologist Paul Buckland published his evaluation of the shield in 1978, based on evidence from the original excavation and the subsequent investigations carried out at the Ancient Monuments Laboratory.
[1]: 249 The off-centre position of the boss would cause the bottom portion of the shield to tip towards the user, protecting their legs.
[1]: 256, 263 Microscopic fragments showed that the centre of the grip, behind the boss, was bound with leather where it would have been held by the soldier's hand.
[1]: 259 The boss showed evidence of an attempt being made to remove it prior to the disposal of the shield by burning, possibly to salvage it for reuse.
[1]: 248 A leather thong may have been provided from the grip to the soldier's wrist to spread the weight of the shield and to prevent its loss in battle.
[1]: 249 There was evidence that a leather cover was affixed to the inner and outer faces of the shield, which could have been formed from a single cow hide.
[1]: 260 However, Buckland stated that the number and position of rivets on the shield probably gave it a Roman origin and it may have been brought over by an auxiliary soldier from Western continental Europe.
[2]: 43 The boss and handgrip from the shield were preserved, along with some iron and bronze fragments, and have been on display at the Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery.
The tabula ansata detail at the top of the bronzework decoration was based findings from the Roman camp at Vindonissa.
