The shield used since the Bronze Age as a mobile protection of the warrior, due to its construction was perfectly suited to expose visual messages in a graphic sign placed on its surface. Its functions could be multiple, from purely aesthetic elevating the morale and social status of the owner (e.g. Achilles' shield described by Homer in the Iliad), through practical - allowing the members of an ethnic group or the unit to recognise each other on the battlefield (e.g. Λ on shields of Spartan hoplites), to the symbolic, religious and apotropaic ones. Despite their utilitarian character and flimsy materials from which shields were constructed (wood, leather), which in turn caused only a few items survived to the present day, thanks to numerous depictions in art it is possible to investigate changes in their decoration over the centuries. In my talk, I intend to analyse religious, symbolic and political graphic motives present on shields in Byzantine art.
