Leather used in Seggys.

[Martin Moser]

... leading to the conclusion that tanned leather was most likely not used (the Carlisle Millennium site preserved tanned leathers but not the internal leathers on the armguards). The matter is discussed in this thread.

Thanks, Mike, interesting stuff! I must have totally missed that thread back then. I'm following the argument, but 2 things keep me from simply accepting it:

1) Looking at at least some of the nailed soles it looks like the area around where the nails were is destroyed more than the areas in between the nailing, which may hint at different processes going on "at close quarters". These might explain why leather survives close by but not in direct contact. I'm not a chemist, nor do I know of any analysis of such shoe soles that would support my hunch, so I may be totally off of course.

2) I would be surprised if - and I'm borrowing Ockham's razor from you here for a quick shave, Mike ;-) - the Romans would have specifically used non-veg tanned leather for this one product when veg tanned leathers of all sorts were around and used for pretty much everything else and also likely serve the requirements better from a material properties point of view (testing needed to be certain in the end of course).

I'm not into the details of seg parts finds as much as I'd need to be, but aren't there any from Masada or other quite dryish regions were careful examination might reveal more?