dyeing linen

[Graham Sumner]

Whereas it may make perfect sense to us to see Roman soldiers restricted to one color or another, it may have not been the way the Romans saw things.

I agree. That is why my own conclusions on military clothing colours were based on what was depicted in Roman art itself supported wherever possible by archaeological finds. At the moment they both suggest to me that a limited range of colours was in use even though the Romans were quite capable of producing any number of colours. However I am well aware that there will be arguments that the Roman artists are not always depicting what they are seeing but what they should have been showing because of a convention and that the archaeological finds too can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Which is why I present the reader with whatever I can find and basically let them make their own minds up.

While new finds of mosaics and wall paintings increases to a degree each year, perhaps the greatest advance will be in the area of the textile finds themselves. Vast numbers are being found all the time and new methods of dating and analysing them are being used.

Nevertheless we are essentially as always trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle when the front box cover is missing and so are nine tenths of the pieces plus the experts themselves can not always agree which way round those pieces should go!

Ancient art is quite different, though. But for the picture you provided: Are the folds and fabric-widths "accurate"? (I don´t know, that´s why I ask)
But still you couldn´t necessarily tell whether it is from wool or linen or silk, what kinds of weaves were used, what kind of dye etc.

It is interesting to note in this instance that the designs we have inherited today for the Toga and the Paludamentum are based solely on sculpture alone! That is why I erred on John's identification of the cloak in his mosaic as being a sagum. However in that case we do have the military papyrus BGU VII 1564 which gives us the size of a military cloak which tallies closely with the Thorsberg cloak. However the textile experts can not agree if that is a typical Germanic cloak or a typical Gallo-Roman cloak.

Some textile archaeologists/historians have however detected elements of clothing material and manufacture from sculpture.

The Vindolanda tablets mention a variety of clothing terms that have not been properly identified. How would you know if what you are seeing is really an overcloak. What did an undercloak look like?

Based on the tunics shown in John's mosaic I would have dated that to Trajanic or Hadrianic times as they have the knot behind the neck familiar to other monuments from that period. I was worried though that many of the best mosaics from Africa date to the third century. In which case we would have an example of what Christian has pointed out an out of date fashion style being copied many years later. Therefore I was pleased to discover that the mosaic is dated to the early Antonine period.

Late mosaics, like those from Piazza Armerina, seem to be showing to the best of the mediums ability contemporary fashion styles with the decorated clavi and orbiculi, long sleeved tuncs and trousers that is supported by archaeology. However in some cases you will still see short sleeved tunics and those worn off the shoulder appearing into the sixth century sometimes alongside the long sleeved variety!

You just have to accept that at some times the answer to a particular question does not and probably will never exist. As Christian and I have discussed elsewhere the real problem arises when you attempt any reconstruction in whatever form. There are many academics who simply would not attempt any at all!

Graham