A couple days ago I chanced upon this interesting article in Periklis Deligiannis's blog. It is nice to see that ancient Chinese military is gaining interest overseas, although (I presume) due to language barrier the author has to rely on questionable artist's renditions of Chinese shields for his article. While my blog isn't strictly academic, I think it'd be nice if I supplement his article with a more in-depth look on the evolution of Chinese shield.
A shield is known as Dun (盾), Pai (牌, can also be written as 排, but less common), as well as its archaic names, Gan (干, note that this character cannot be written as 幹), Lu (櫓), and Bing Jia (秉甲, lit. 'Handheld armour'), in Chinese language. In modern usage, Chinese characters "Dun" and "Pai" are usually combined into a single word, Dun Pai (盾牌). Shield had been an integral, if obscure, part of Chinese culture for thousand of years, not just for warfare but also for art, ceremony and religious purposes.
A shield is known as Dun (盾), Pai (牌, can also be written as 排, but less common), as well as its archaic names, Gan (干, note that this character cannot be written as 幹), Lu (櫓), and Bing Jia (秉甲, lit. 'Handheld armour'), in Chinese language. In modern usage, Chinese characters "Dun" and "Pai" are usually combined into a single word, Dun Pai (盾牌). Shield had been an integral, if obscure, part of Chinese culture for thousand of years, not just for warfare but also for art, ceremony and religious purposes.
Shang Dynasty (1600 BC – 1046 BC)
As the earliest verifiable dynasty in Chinese history, archaeological finds of Shang shields are extremely scarce. There are only a few known types of shields in use during this period. |
| Oracle bone script, interpreted as either Gan (干) or Dun (盾). |