Thick Heavy Linen Canvas

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

There is no evidence to suggest that the linothorax was hardened with glue or anything else. In fact the slim documentary evidence we have suggests that glue was NOT used. Most likely it was made of multiple layers of light linen quilted together.

I agree...

My point was that the rabbit skin glue was, and still is, used to prepare a canvas for painting. (Ugh!) It is somewhat flexible (more so than gesso) and is meant as a medium to hold paint. It also has some waterproofing qualities. If you wanted to paint your lino, or canvas shield surface, or whatever, you glue that surface as a you would use gesso as a primer. Just the outer layer, It does not hold the thing together, the stitching does that. I believe there is evidence of painted fabric armours, so surface preparation is reasonable to assume, since without it, most paints will simply bleed through the rest of the layers. The oldest canvas paintings I know of off hand, (1300 something or another) had surface preparation of some sort. The Chinese even used lacquered paper.

Marcus,
The 3rd century (?) fragment from Carpow is of scale on a textile backing, described as "rough canvas" in some sources. It seems a single layer and has some of the leather edging still attached.

Ralph