There also exists a set of small Mycenaean relics called Palladia, found at Mycenae, Spata and in the earliest strata of the Acropolis at Athens. They resemble "two circles joined together so as to intersect one another slightly," or "a long oval pinched in at the middle." They vary in size from six inches to half an inch, and are of ivory, glazed ware, or glass. Several such shields are engraved on Mycenaean gems; one, in gold, is attached to a silver vase. The ornamentation shown on them occurs, too, on Mycenaean shields in works of art; in short, these little objects are representations in miniature of the big double-bellied Mycenaean shield. Mr. Ernest Gardner concludes that these objects are the "schematised" reductions of an armed human figure, only the shield which covered the whole body is left. They are talismans symbolising an armed divinity, Pallas or another. A Dipylon vase (Fig. 3) shows a man with a shield, possibly evolved out of this kind, much scooped out at the waist, and reaching from neck to knees. The shield covers his side, not his back or front. [Footnote: _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. xiii. pp. 21-24.] [Illustration: FIG. 4.] One may guess that the original pinch at the waist of the Mycenaean shield was evolved later into the two deep scoops to enable the warrior to use his arms more freely, while the shield, hanging from his neck by a belt, covered the front of his body. Fig. 4 shows shields of 1060-1160 A.D. equally designed to cover body and legs. Men wore shields, if we believe the artists of Mycenae, when lion-hunting, a sport in which speed of foot is desirable; so they cannot have been very weighty. The shield then was hung over one side, and running was not so very difficult as if it hung over back or front (_cf._ Fig. 5). The shields sometimes reach only from the shoulders to the calf of the leg. [Footnote: Reichel, p. 3, fig. 5, Grave III. at Mycenae.] The wearer of the largest kind could only be got at by a sword-stab over the rim into the throat [Footnote: _Ibid_., p. 2, fig. 2.] (Fig. 5). Some shields of this shape were quite small, if an engraved rock-crystal is evidence; here the shield is not half so high as an adjacent goat, but it may be a mere decoration to fill the field of the gem. [Footnote: Reichel, p. 3, fig. 7.] [Illustration: FIG. 5. RINGS: SWORDS AND SHIELDS] Other shields, covering the body from neck to feet, were sections of cylinders; several of these are represented on engraved Mycenaean ring stones or on the gold; the wearer was protected in front and flank [Footnote: _Ibid._, p. 4, fig II, 12; p. I, fig I.] (Fig. 5).