Leather Tooling?

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Did the Romans tool, or carve leather?

[Peroni]

I don't know about decorative tooling Paul, but there have been a few finds from Vindolanda of leather scraps with cohort designations stamped into them. Notably Coh VIIII Batavorum. I think the concensus is that there was a large tanning operation in Catterick, and hides were supplied from there to the various forts as required by the garrisson cohort.


There's always the shield cover fragments. The tabula denoting the legion was inscised with square and triangular patterns. There's certainly evidence of tooling on shoes. (Saalburg examples) Martin may be able to enlighten us further here(?)

[Martin Moser]

With shoes, they definitely did. Many of the soleae show that, tooling, sometimes combined with gilding even. Carving as well, there is one find from Vindonissa I remember. I can look it up and post some pics if you're interested, Paul.

[aitor iriarte]

Tooling was present on two of the 4th century Deurne shoes (three, because both shoes from a pair were preserved). Here's my reconstruction of one of them:






Aitor

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Thanks Guys!

Martin could you please send me the info on the Vindonissa shoes? I am planning on making a trip there next month for more photos.

[Martin Moser]

The piece I was thinking of is published in:

Gansser-Burckhardt, A.: Das Leder und seine Verarbeitung im römischen Legionslager Vindonissa, Basel 1942

pp 71-73 and Abb.48 (on p72)

Here's an image: