Turtle shield
 

Anyone seen one of these before ?

It is definitely shell although whether terrestrial or marine I am not sure.
I would say marine as I think the tortoises are usually more "domed"

It is only 10 1/2 inches across.
The bosses and fish are brass.
The moons and central plate are iron or steel.

As usual, all comments will be welcome.

Regards
Roy

IT LOOKS TO BE MADE FROM THE TOP OF A SOFT SHELL TURTLE. IN THE USA THE FEMALES CAN GET UP TO 35 POUNDS AND ARE GOOD TO EAT. THESE TURTLES ARE PROBABLY THE FASTEST FRESHWATER TURTLE OF ALL TURTLES ON LAND OR IN THE WATER. I SUSPECT THEY MAY GROW LARGER IN TROPICAL AREAS WHERE LOTS OF FOOD IS EASILY AVAILABLE. THE WORD SOFT SHELL REFERS TO THE LARGER LEATHERY COVER ESPECIALLY AROUND THE SHELL EDGES. THEY DO HAVE A HARD BONE SHELL ESPECIALLY ON THEIR BACK.

Vandoo beat me to it.

To answer the question, soft-shelled turtles are essentially freshwater, and they are increasingly rare, especially the large ones like we see here. There are species all over the place (Asia, Africa, North and South America), so I can't give you a locality from the shell. Hopefully someone else will chime in with location information. My guess is Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh).

Best,

F

Nice shield.

In "Shields" by Benitez and Barbier there is a Sudan shield on page 94 made also of similar "soft" turtle shell.

That book refers to it as possibly the shell of "Cyclanorbis Elegans".

Ps. a small anekdote.
6 years ago I saw a small Indian turtle shell shield for sale in London.
Examining that shield learned me that is was made of a kind of handmade carton, modelled and painted / lacquered to look like turtle shell.
Sadly the Pound / Euro exchange rate made it too expensive to buy it for fun.

Because of the design's resemblance to the Nepalese surya/chandra symbol, and the fact that softshells also occur in Nepal, I think that is another strong possibility.

http://i36.tinypic.com/ve9fz4.jpg

I agree that this could be Indian or Nepalese. Both have major Hindu populations, and in Hinduism the crescent moon usually represents Siva and the fish I think an avatar of Visnu - a symbol of good luck in any case.

Hate to mention "Fagan & Co", but over the years, I've seen three tortoise shell shields. One was like this one, with the cresent bosses and listed as E Indian. Another was very primitive, with just an outer lining of strip metal and listed as Sudanese (shell was tan/sand-colored). A final shield was odd-shaped and made from flattened shell and listed as "Persian". For lack of a better word, it spanned out from the middle into a butterfly shape. Very nive piece you have!

Correction on last. The final shield of turtle shell was listed as Madhist. I just went back and looked...

Thank you everyone

Regards
Roy