Are gloves period?

[Lepidina]

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.p...4&start=20
Bottom images I'm told were knitted, not nålbound/nallbound/naalbound. I'm sure ther is is a difference, but somehow I don't understand why there should be a 'terminus' before knitting can't have existed. If somehow invented the technique earlier than previously assumed, why not?

The museum in Stuttgart where they told me these socks were knitted and from the 4th c. AD.

A few things going on here.

a) Early textiles were often labeled "knitting" as a catch-all for "non-woven". Few curators cared or even bothered to find out whether something was made with a 2-needle knitting technique or a 1-needle nalbinding technique. Rutt, in A History of Handknitting even says that there are medieval girdles that are labled as being knitted when they were tablet woven. So just because something says it's "knitted", doesn't mean that it was made with what we think of as "knitting" today.

b) Because of the "knitting" label, few curators have actually gone back and looked at the artifacts to see what technique they were constructed of and the knitting label stuck. Look at the V&A socks which are labled "knitting" but if you look closely at the stitches, the technique is clearly nalbinding. Makes me want to smack the curators at the V&A.

c) The bottom sock is definitely knitted but is from probably 1200-1300AD. It says "Allah" around the top. The middle sock is probably turned inside out but it is the reverse of nalbinding.

Like any craft, it's hard to say when it actually got started. But you can say when it was definitely around. Before about 600AD, all "knitted" fabric that has been found is definitely nalbinding and comes from either the Middle East or Egypt. The earliest such piece comes from Dura-Europos, Syria dated to AD 256. The V&A socks come from a Greek colony in Egypt around 400-600AD.

Given this, I'd have to say that knitting as a Roman technique is definitely right out. Rutt, again in his book, think that knitting took over from nalbinding somewhere between 500-1200AD and might have come up to Europe through Muslim Spain. It's also interesting to note that until about 1200, only socks have been found in both nalbinding and knitting. Doesn't rule out other garments but doesn't mean that they existed either.

We DO have existant examples of sewn socks for the Romans and their weaving techniques are pretty well documented. So like Matt Amt and the great pugio debate, I'd have to say that unless something is clearly documented, we shouldn't use it in reenactments. Thus if you want to be as authentic as you can, knitted items are right out.

For more info on this, I'd recommend checking out a copy of Richard Rutt's, A History of Hand Knitting which any decent library should have. The first chapter talks about the confusion with the earliest samples of "knitting" and how to tell the difference between knitting and nalbinding. Nancy Bush's Folk Socks also has a little blurb on early socks and a picture of the Vindolanda children's sock that was found.

deb