Roman Shoe Reconstructions

[Crispianus]

Salve

I have finished one pair of calcei Billingsgate style. The customer wants a flavian calcei, and this style was used between 80-130 aD, beeing the forerunner of many II century calcei.

I have do it in blue calf leather, 2 mm thickness, with a insole of 2 mm and an outsole of 3-4 mm, both stitched with tunnel stitch. Have added some aditional decoration (punched dots and perimetral incised line)

Interesting though M.Volken notes the Calcei version as a Hadrianic style, the end date should probably go as far as late Antonine at least as far as the references quoted are concerned... these include Newstead, Rough Castle, Balmuildy and Barhill.... and I think should also include Crawford...
All of the sources are available online either at ADS or the Internet Archive.



Newstead no3(carbatina) and no5(calcei)
   
Ref: Curle 1911

Balmuildy No2 & 5(calcai)
   
Ref: https://archive.org/details/romanfortatbalmu00mill

Bar hill Fig24 no41(calcai)
   
Ref: http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/...ethod=Link
and "Bar Hill a Roman fort and its finds", Robertson Scott & Keppie.

Rough Castle(calcai)
   
Ref: Excavations on the Antonine wall fort of Rough Castle 1957-61, Macivor, Thomas, Breeze. on ADS.

Crawford Fort from the Antonine fort ditch note the similarity with the examples from Balmuildy.
   
Ref: Excavations at the Roman fort of Crawford, Lanarkshire by Gordon Maxwell. on ADS.

For Flavian I would go with a plain Calcei (no cutouts) from Castle Street Carlisle comparable with decorated examples from Vindolanda some of which are in small sizes so could have been worn by the entire population , essentially a shoe version of a fellboot... which can be securely dated to the 80s-90s AD..

hope this is some help