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So I always tought tower shields were based on roman or greek shields but apparentely they did have some properties which tower shields dont have, mainly beign able to bash with them.
By the way, fun factoids: If you try to search for "tower shield" on Wikipedia, you get redirected to the article about the Scutum, which is the Roman tower shield. You could even do a bash with it, but it was apparently more susceptible to being sundered by such weapons as the falcata (Iberian, although this weapon did not bo by that name at the time) and the falx (Dacian, and the source of the modern name of the falcata), compared to the aspis, which was the ancient Greek heavy shield (interesting potential source of name for the Aspis Consortium, huh?), which covered less area but was more durable (both were made primarily of wood). Unfortunately, neither these properties of the scutum, the falcata, or the falx made it into D&D/Pathfinder. Also unfortunately, the articles do not say how much any of these items weighed.
Does anybody know which was the inspiration for those shields, also has someone tried to stat shields like this ones? or you would just consider them heavy shields and be done with it?
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You are wondering if there is a real life equivalent or inspiration of the tower shield beside the roman scutum? Kite Shield I guess could be part of the inspiration but quite frankly, not really anything out there like the tower shield that we have in pathfinder/dnd.
I guess something worth mentioning, D&D 5e, got rid of the concept of Tower Shield, which is understandable.
Tower Shields were not based on shields as we know them at all, they were based on large wooden barricades soldiers would slowly advance behind. You would basically carry a short distance, plant it in the ground, shoot a few arrows or whatever from behind it, then move up again.
I think the Greeks in the Trojan War, as described in the Illiad, used something very like a tower shield.
It was certainly big enough they carried it to where they wanted to fight and put it on the ground and used it as cover.
So they come from Homer.
The pavise.
Multiple sources over multiple time periods. The idea of using shields as walls is nothing new, dating back to the Greeks, Egyptians and moving up through the more recent years with the riot shield.
The tower shield as it is presented in the game is more an amalgamation of the idea of a large shield you can hide behind than it is sourced from any single historical shield.
Castle doors, abandoned rafts, your professor's boring book you need to read, someone charging a pavise and the artist not understanding it wasnt his shield and thats not how you Shield bash.
On a serious note, and already mentioned, The Illiad by Homer describes Ayax amongst others fighting With a huge Shield where a colleague would hide behind and come out to shoot arrows.