RomanArmyTalk

Greetings!

Well here I am again on the next leg of building my Kit. Where do you get your Red Wool or Red Linen? I have already received some samples but I must admit, I am confused. Should I be looking for something that appears to be hand woven? Or like my $350.00 virgin wool suit?

What are some of you using for your tunica? Where did you get it? What color is it and do you have a sample number?

I am in no-where land and am not a part of a reenactment group... So for now I am a RAT Groupie!

Your suggestions would be appreciated. I am looking for the Red tones though. ANd... preferably places in the USA I can purchase it at. Not to offend all those in other parts of the world... just on a tight budget and shipping is a pain.

Thanks...

Optimus Taurus

I bought my first linen tunic fabric from an online store, it was cheap (like $6/yard) and the color looked right, it was 100% linen and had a woven texture, however several months later it began to fade orange, maybe due to washing as I was trying to get some stains out from my armor.

Still seeing the internet as the cheapest option, I purchased linen from another online seller, and despite that it claimed it was 9oz weight linen, it was actually much less thinner than my now orange 6oz linen, and the color was different.

So I sent it back and went to Joann Fabrics (they seem to be nationwide in the USA), and luckily I had a coupon for 50% off and bought a few yards of more of a brick red (I understand Madder red was more likely, but there are too many shades it seems. In addition I believe "brick red" was/is the preferred color of the Lafe event). I washed it once, and it still had a nice deep color to it, it is a similar color to the once used in my profile pic, however it is a linen/rayon blend and was a little more expensive at $10/yard.

As I understand it, the way modern wool is made is less comfortable than it was spun in ancient times. I believe the same color red at Joann's in wool was about $26/yard, so price may be a factor

Legio XI in Atlanta, Ga and Legio VI F in Charleston, SC get there linen from fabric-store.com. We use the Kenya and Brick Red.

Jbd... Thanks... I do see a Kenya there but not a Brick Red. Do you know what grad of Linen that is? All Purpose, Light weight or Heavy Rustic?

I've heard that the reds used could well have looked a little tomatoe soupy/orange,
due to the process used or just fading from washing and sun..so your orangish tunic is still good!

If you want very accurate tunics in color and manufacture, you could contact Claire Marshall on this forum. I have several clothing items from her. They are top quality.

Hm .... i will make a roman tunic on loom soon, but it will not be red - madder red. The madder red tunics by the Roman soldiers are modern clishe. The tunics were of natural-wool-colours, brown from the italian sheep Bergamasca, light-brown, blue (woad), white - of the sheeps from the area Po river and Patavian area (Veneto), too. Ok, the madder-dyeing is evidented, but as a part of the other dyeing colours.
My celtic tunic was dyeing with madder, here:



Red linen? Wich century? Linen is not easy to dyeing, is much better wool. The colour in linen is much more complicated and exist not in long time periode, is "short-lived" fact.


White colour: HOW MUCH WHITE? I am researching at the moment about this fact and wrote in two German's forums this question. The togas of the senator's were artificially white, but i think normal tunicas were it not, they were more white of the natural white-wool.
Joze

Call me a heathen but when I want woollen material I generally go to a charity shop and buy old undyed woollen blankets, which are very cheap. I am not a believer in uniformity in the Roman army and I certainly don't think there was any sort of 'uniform' tunic colour. It is true that a number of textile fragments from military sites do show traces of madder dying, but it is equally true that there are also plenty of surviving textile fragments which show no evidence of ever having been dyed at all.

Crispvs

Quote:Call me a heathen but when I want woollen material I generally go to a charity shop and buy old undyed woollen blankets, which are very cheap.

Me too! Though I did pick up some lovely red wool recently from a UK supplier specialising in 18thC clothing.

When I was a re-enactor I always liked to say to members of the public that this piece of kit I was wearing was based on a particular archaeological find.

As an archaeological illustrator it is always my aim to base everything I do as near as possible on the archaeological evidence.

While I would not go as far as to say that the Roman army had a uniform colour in the sense of the British Army 1742 clothing book, I do believe the soldiers themselves aimed to achieve a 'uniform' military look as opposed to the civil population at large. This reached its apogee in the third century AD when every rank from the humble miles to the emperor himself looked, at least from a distance, the same, even down to the same haircut.

In the most popular period the first century of the imperial era the archaeological evidence is limited. However from what I have discovered in the archaeological record and written accounts I have proposed several times that for general everyday wear the soldiers wore an un-dyed off white or beige tunic. It was possible that in battle this was replaced by a red tunic that was dyed with madder or that un-dyed tunics of varying shades of reddish wool were used. For parades there seems to be ample evidence that bleached tunics were worn. I was later pleased to discover that the first century textile finds the military site of Dydimoi in Egypt yielded only un-dyed, beige or madder dyed red examples.

To me this seems fairly 'uniform' given the circumstances of a pre-industrialised nation who nevertheless could achieve a 'uniformity' in equipment such as footwear that can look almost identical in examples from South Wales or Syria. Granted equipment reflected the wealth of the individual and individual soldiers decorated their gear in many ways but while we may have daggers or swords in the first century for example that are decorated in numerous different ways, we do not get numerous dagger or sword types.

I therefore do not think that the limited but consistent range of clothing colours for which we have evidence for is therefore evidence that we can choose whatever colours we like.

The principle material for military tunics even in the eastern theatre was wool. As for linen tunics, it seems the Romans preferred to keep linen its natural colour and that frequently it was bleached in the sun to achieve a brighter white. It seems they also had difficulty in dyeing it, so I myself would be wary of using red linen for military tunics. However a white bleached linen tunic for parade use was probably acceptable.

Graham.

Thank you Graham... I am also an artist, I am a Master Woodcarver. As an illustrator, and your work with ath archaeological finds, do you have any examples, drawings or pictures of what type of weaves or thicknesses of the material would have been? Either wool or linen or both?

I appreciate your time. You can see my work (Although it is not Roman related... yet but it will be soon) at patrickpointer.com

I too am a perfectionist and just want to get things as "right" as possible.

Thanks again

Patrick

I think the same as the Graham - i was trying to explain it, aswell, but in my poor english i wrote it very simple.
Ab. year ago i saw in web the frescoes from Pompei - i was researching ab. the paenula (the scene in a bakery-house) and i saw some tunic, too. But on the ITALIAN's web site i found the evidence - mosaic with white legionary's tunic, not only red (madder-red), but there i can see the evidence of the Grahamntoo.
here:
http://legioneromana.altervista.org/ita/...om=&ucat=9&

Ab. the colour of the wool: yes, the beige is correctly term, i think the snow-white wool was very rare ( i wrote this fact).
I was changing my wool from the white to beige variante on saturday, it is here the difference between before and now:



Joze

Hello Joze

There is far more evidence available than what is displayed via that link and in the article by Fuentes or even in my own first Osprey publication.

Fuentes only discussed about 18 pieces of evidence while in my last book 'Roman Military Dress' I discuss nearly 150 topics! Nevertheless I was amused to read on one website that it was I who was accused of being selective!!!

While it can be argued that the time period covered is too great, nonetheless the evidence remains consistent. Some colours regularly appear, while others do not. It can also be argued that some colours only appear in certain situations. For example whenever Green coloured clothing appears it is nearly always shown in later Roman mosaics or paintings in hunting scenes. Perhaps this was the 'hunting costume' which one emperor is described as wearing.

Unfortunately like the many mentions of 'military' dress or 'military' cloaks the Roman writers don't bother to clearly describe what theses garments are, as they were naturally obvious to them. However we do get rare mentions of "red military tunics" in some later accounts.

If you read my last book you can look at all the evidence I found and make up your own mind.

Patrick. Superb workmanship by the way! If you are interested in doing work based on Roman period textiles in a big way I suggest you have a look at some of the exhibition catalogues relating to what are commonly called Coptic textiles. Or an American publication called 'Looms and Textiles of the Copts' by D.L Carroll. The 'Coptic' terminology is a bit confusing and most people do not realise that it includes late Roman clothing. In these books you will generally get good close up photographs of the textiles themselves, both wool and linen, as well as a wealth of patterns and designs.

Graham.

Quote:If you read my last book you can look at all the evidence I found and make up your own mind.

Hello Graham, i dont know, if your last book shows the tunic of 1. cent. BC/1. cent. AD - for the other timeframe i don't have much interess, specially for the dress after 3. or 4 cent. AD are a lot of evidences. But i am writing here in this topic because of the "red" colour and the tunic of 1.st cent. AD /2.nd cent. AD are by the reenactors usually red, f.e. the military tunic by the reenactors of the Tiberian's or Flavian's periode. I think, that the Vindolanda's fragments are to young aswell and i am sure, that local Roman's texile production may shows local atributes, aswell (ab. the colour, material and shapes of the tunic, depends of the local materials and other influences).

Joze

Hello Joze

There seems to be a belief amongst some re-enactors that Roman soldiers went about in checked clothing or tartans. Apart from some very conservative Roman writers who criticised a few senior figures like Marc Antony and Caesar for wearing local dress during the Gallic wars there is nothing to suggest that all soldiers based in Britain and Gaul wore 'local' clothing.

I know of one small textile fragment known as the 'Falkirk tartan' which was found in Scotland. Presumably it was local manufacture but it is not large enough to determine from what type of garment it came, if any and nothing to suggest it belonged to a Roman soldier.

If by local you do mean in the Northern provinces then there is not a great deal of surviving evidence for local textile finds anyway and I have not seen anything which would suggest ordinary soldiers were purchasing any local garments.

The Vindolanda tablets record the purchase of textiles from Gaul and by that date in the late first century AD Gaul had been a Roman province for over a hundred years and the textile industry was supplying for the Roman market.

In the same way we have evidence that the textile industry in Egypt was supplying the eastern armies in Judaea and Cappadocia with clothing as well as Egypt. These garments were in plain white wool.

There is more evidence for clothing finds beyond the Roman frontiers especially in the bog finds of Germany Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia. There is debate about these finds as many can be described as having Romano Gallic influences because a type of weave known as the 'Virring' type only appears during the Roman period.

What were 'the local's wearing anyway? Many Roman depiction's show Germanic warriors wearing nothing more than capes and a leather cape was found in Denmark. Equally Britons are often depicted naked.

However more work is being done on clothing finds from across the empire and beyond so who knows this rather bleak picture might change in a few years.

Graham.