A thureos was a large oval shield

Shield

A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace or battle axe to the side of the shield-bearer....

 which was commonly used in Hellenistic

Hellenistic civilization

Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...

 armies from the 3rd BC on. It was adopted from the Galatia

Galatia

Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...

ns probably first by the Ilyrians, then by the Thracians

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...

 before becoming common in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. Troops who carried it were known as thureophoroi

Thureophoroi

The thureophoroi was a type of infantry soldier, common in the 3rd to 1st century BCE, who carried a large oval shield called a thureos which had a type of metal strip boss and a central spine. They were armed with a long thrusting spear, javelins and a sword. They also usually wore an iron or...

. It was made of wood covered with leather and had a spined boss. It was carried using a central handgrip. Some variants of the shield were nearly rectangular. The name thureos has its origin in the word for a door-stone or door-stop which may have been applied to it because of its size or sub-rectangular shape.