Hi, all when you research all you get to see from ancient type artefacts is the traditional red shield which we all know, how do we know these numerous others style patterns on the shield were actually used,
even in films about the 9th , they have the red shield, so for me, I stick to what I have come to know. Any one come across shield design the art work on the shield. that they have never seen
I agree with a lot you are saying, we cannot have definitive proof of shield colour, they could have been dyed rather than painted anyway. There is a lot of academic written evidence on shield design taken from statues and carved monuments. Plus see below for the only know surviving shield,
https://museum-of-artifacts.blogspot.com/2015/10/roman-scutum-shield-this-is-only-known.html
The Piazza-Armerina mosaics designs, left picture below.
https://www.messagetoeagle.com/dura-europos-roman-shield-created-with-ancient-painting-techniques-on-wood/
The films on the 9th also tend to be based on the Margaret Sutcliffe books in the 1950s, with a discussion on whether or not they went missing in Britain or not is ongoing, with the tablet fragment found that states they were in Holland around 120AD, but the tablet is a fragment and talks of a cav unit. i would swing more to them going missing or heavily defeated in Northern England/Scotland. Based on the lack of evidence for the Legion being around after the time when they went missing. Plus I am from the North of England and it has not changed much, there are some places where they have weird Gods [now know as Soccer teams and players] and there are places where they still eat their young [joke]. I often visit Roman sites, there are 41 with 1 hour drive of where i live and have visited Hadrian's Wall on many occasions, i asked the curator at Vindolanda about knowing the colour of articles etc and he said there has been high resolution and x ray scan of fragments and pieces and there are still traces of colour which can be analysed for which colour it actually was etc. Slightly different, but i used to work at the STFC in the UK and they used the Diamond light Source to read a scroll which has been buried for 2,000 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_XZTyy1bE So finding out colour pigments is achievable.
Would not base my military knowledge on Hollywood, prime examples being the Battle of the Bulge films, the Patriot, Braveheart, Pearl Harbour, U571, Redtails, Green Berets, Guadalcanal, Glory, Great Escape.................................. In the films about the 9th they mainly had short back and sides haircuts and had English or American accents. I think they use all red shields in the same way as many WW2 films use the wrong tanks etc, it is easier and cost effective, after all they are just entertainment.
One thing i always feel about TS manufacturers is the figures tend to be too uniform, there are no very tall or short figures or different body shapes.
