Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/92

82 The excavations were continued till the whole length of the vessel was exposed. All along the outside of the walls, from the prow to the poop, extended a series of circular bucklers lapping one over another like the scales of a fish, of which nearly a hundred, partly



painted yellow and black, remain. In many places the wood of the bucklers has been destroyed, and only the central plate of iron is left. The famous tapestry of Bayeux shows quite plainly how the vessels of the vikings were furnished with rows of bucklers (Fig. 2), but it