Roman wire...

[Franklin]

Erik, did you mean the Catherine Johns quote? I can post the entire thing here, it was only 3 or 4 paragraphs. I've also emailed her to ask for any clarification she could offer.

[Erik D. Schmid]

Hey guys, your guess is as good as mine. I would think that that is the correct article, but I'm not sure. I never did get a name for it, only a reference. Sorry. :oops: In my own defense, the armourer did not know the name of it.

[Franklin]

WIRE

The normal method of making wire today is by drawing: a metal rod is pulled through holes of ever-decreasing size in a drawplate until it reaches the desired diameter. The manufacture of wire in antiquity has been extensively studied, and it now seems virtually certain that drawn wire was not made within the period we are concerned with here but was first developed in the West around eighth century AD. The best summary of the methods of manufacture and the history of the study will b found in Jack Ogden's paper "Classical gold wire: some aspects of its manufacture and use".

Wire can be made simply by hammering, but obviously this is a somewhat crude method when the aim is to produce very fine wire of regularly cross-section. Fine gold or silver wire was made in antiquity by twisting and roling techniques, either by twisting a thin strip or ribbon of metal until it became a coiled tube like a paper drinking straw and then rolling it between two flat surfaces (wood is hard enough to roll gold wire) until it was compressed into a solid cylinder, or alternatively by starting with a thicker strip that was simply twisted and rolled. The former method has been termed strip twisting and the latter block twisting, although it is unlikely that ht ancient craftsman made any such distinction - the manual processes were virtually the same in practice. These methods of wire manufacture leave distinct helical seams on the completed wire that can easily be seen on many gold examples. Drawing, on the other hand, leaves straight grooves along the length of the wire. The distinction and the visible traces that are left by the different methods used to be one way of detecting modern fakes of ancient gold jewellery. Some skilled forgers have long since caught up with the state of knowledge, and now used twisted wire.

Wire with a beaded or milled appearance, imitating a row of tiny grains of metal, can be produce by several different methods. The simplest is to roll a single-edged blade across he wire at intervals. This tends to result in a somewhat irregular series of transverse grooves. A tool with a concave U-sectioned edge will produce more regular spherical beads in the wire. Both regular rounded beading and more haphazardly grooved wire are found in Romano-British gold and silver jewellery, and various types of beaded wire continued to be popular in much medieval jewellery. Two wires twisted together , and then used in juxtaposition with a pair twisted in the opposite direction, create a miniature plaited or herringbone effect that is also seen in Roman filigree work. Fragments of twisted wires were included amongst the scrap silver in the Snettisham jeweller's hoard.

Catherine Johns, The Jewellery of Roman Britain, University College of London Press, 1996. Pages 192-4.

[Franklin]

I also emailed Catherine to ask about the drawplate finds and inquire about any further detail she could offer. Below is her response. "BM" here refers to the British Museum.

Dear Franklin,

Nice to hear from you again.

In my jewellery book, I kept closely to what my scientific colleagues in our Research Laboratory were sure of at the time, namely that in the extensive examinations that they had carried out over the decades on precious-metal material in the BM, there was no evidence of drawn wire until into the medieval period. There have often been claims of both drawn wire and actual drawplates from much earlier periods, including New Kingdom Egypt, I think, but as far as I am aware, none has ever been substantiated. I think that the question of whether drawing might have been used for base metals while more traditional methods continued with gold is easily dealt with: if drawing was done at all to make wire, I think it would have been likely to have been in use with gold, and of course, it is on gold that one can most easily see the traces of the manufacturing method anyway. The evidence is much more difficult to see on copper alloys, let alone iron. I would not like to offer any opinion on the chronology of wire technology in the Far East, but I should have thought that Persia and even India had sufficiently close contacts with the Graeco-Roman world that the technologies would not have differed materially.

As you probably know, the history of scholarly opinion on the subject is summarised in Jack Ogden’s 1991 paper in Jewellery Studies, cited in my book, and I feel fairly confident that if any major discovery had been made to overturn that, I should have heard about it, either from Jack himself or from my Research Lab colleagues at the BM. However, I am not as totally in the loop as I was, so my suggestion would be that you should contact the metals section of the BM Research Laboratory ( [email protected] ) and ask whether there have been any recent scientific studies on the subject that might confirm or modify the received wisdom of the last 10-15 years on the subject. You could also contact Jack Ogden: he is currently the CEO of the Gemmological Association ( try [email protected] initially) but still keeps a very close eye indeed on research in the field of ancient technology generally.

best wishes,
Catherine

[Erik D. Schmid]

Thank you for that Franklin.

With all due respect to Catherine, this may have indeed been the way they made wire for jewelry, but I have examined pieces of Roman mail that have very distinct drawplate markings on them. Add that to what has been posted above about the Roman drawplates that have been found and I think we can safely say that the wire used for mail was made from drawn wire as opposed to the method she suggests.

In my mind it would take an unbelievable amount of time to craft wire for mail in the same fashion as that used in jewelry. I also think that using wire made form that method would also prove to be exceedingly weak and prone to breaking.

[Franklin]

I finally heard back from the metals department of the British Museum Research Laboratory. Here is their response:

"A very interesting question. The problem revolves around the fact that ferrous wire from the Roman period is so rarely found in a sufficiently uncorroded state to preserve the metallographic structure - and hence the evidence for how it was made. There is certainly no evidence for non-ferrous wire being drawn in the Roman period, but it could be argued that there was a greater need for mass-production methods for mail armour - but we are lacking in proof.
Do not be confused by the issue of drawplates. There is a world of difference between using a 'drawplate' to smooth and standardise the diameter of an already shaped wire, and using a drawplate to turn a thick rod into a fine wire."

[Erik D. Schmid]

What I see are people attempting to push their theory at all costs. They have already descided how wire was made, so any evidence to the contrary will be treated with contempt more or less and subjected to extreme scrutiny.

This same mindset was used for the solid link debate as well. The vast majority of academics flatly refused the idea of solid links being made by punching. They were of the belief that all solid links were made by forge/fire welding period. Any theory put forth that countered this was hotly contested. Only after intense research was this theory finally accepted. Of course, there are still those out there that don't believe it even with concrete evidence to support it, something the welded theorists do not have in their corner.

This brings us back to wire drawing. There are plenty of Roman mail finds that are in a more or less uncorrupted state that could be tested of both ferrous and non-ferrous metal. Saying the opposite is nothing more than an excuse. No evidence of non-ferrous wire being drawn? Honestly, these people need to get out of their bubble more often.

It is very apparent that these people do nut understand how mail is made. If wire was made in the manner they suggest, then trying to flatten and rivet the ends would be quite problematic to say the least. This would also give us a good bit of evidence for their method as well.

Here is a good example of their midset:

"These methods of wire manufacture leave distinct helical seams on the completed wire that can easily be seen on many gold examples. Drawing, on the other hand, leaves straight grooves along the length of the wire."

But, in their response to Franklin they imply a drawplate was used to smooth the already shaped wire. Why would one need to smooth out wire for mail if they don't need to for jewelry? Basically what they are saying is that the method that was used for jewelry was the same for all metals no matter what. If it has grooves, then it was simply smoothed after being formed. It is obvious that they will not entertain any other method for production. Typical. :roll:

[Franklin]

Keep in mind these two responses came from separate sources, although Catherine does defer to the British Museum experts for her technical expertise.

[Dan Howard]

I agree with Erik. Who from the British Museum sent that lame response?

[M. Demetrius]

I've pulled some brass wire (not hard brass) through a sizer. It's no small task! If iron is harder than brass, then I'd just have to say that drawing iron wire through a sizing plate would not be easy at all. And to draw enough to make a maille shirt would be more than one day's work, just for that.

With the right kind of swadge tools, I think you could get there so much faster with hot iron, that it's not really worth talking about doing it like jewelry (where you might need a meter or two of soft gold or silver wire). How many feet of iron wire made a Roman hamata? How hard would it be to size it?

[Franklin]

The response was unsigned. The email address was simply [email protected] .