I consider myself fairly well-read, but it wasn’t until recently that I actually endeavored to read Homer’s (allegedly) classic pair of tales about the Trojan War: The Iliad and The Odyssey. Through my other reading I had gleaned a good deal of information on the tales, but I was surprised with the high value place on each warrior’s armor. After a kill, soldiers from both sides would fight frantically to recover the war armor from the fallen, as it was viewed as a type of field trophy.
The most important piece of equipment from the books would have to be Achilles’ shield, which was forged by the god Hephaestus, a crippled blacksmith, specifically for him. Actually, Achilles received an entire set of armor, but battle shields has special significance, and an entire book of the epic was named after the shield. Hephaestus engraved an elaborate scene on the shield, which Achilles contemplated before going to slay Hector.