Old Ethiopian Shield For Comment
 

Hi Guys

I managed to pick this nice old shield up the other day.

http://cgi.ebay.com/EXCEPTIONAL-ETHI...QQcmdZViewItem

I think I did ok let me know what you think?


Lew

To be perfectly honest with you I have only ever seen these shields on ebay. I have never seen or handled one since collecting. As the UK was quite heavily involved in Ethiopia I find that a little strange but one is always discovering new things. I am not able to form an opinion from the pictures I have seen since observing there appearance on ebay. How robust are they? What is the handle like? I am really looking forward to good pictures from you.

OK Tim

Here are some better pics. That piece of leather under the small loop is an old repair covering a small crack in the shield.

Lew

Well it looks like a jolly smart addition to your ever growing collection. You must have a fair few shields from the horn of Africa. Nice :cool: .

Hello Lew,

I think your shield comes from the Dorse, a subgroup of the Sidamo, living in southern central Ethiopia. A nice pice, but may be not so old than the normal leather ones of this group. I would think around 1950.
Attached you can see my similar example.

Wolf

Nicely done Wodimi!!! Thank you for posting that and detailing the probable tribal origin. Could not find anything similar enough in the apparantly very limited shield resources here, and now I can add this (as well as sleep tonite!!:) It drives me crazy when something is so close but I cant find it!
All the best,
Jim

Nice exemple, I have one from the same region, made of leather:

http://lulef.free.fr/html/amhara.html

Luc