12-18-2007, 11:34 PM
Quote:Graham, do you have a pic you can post as an example of a soldier wearing puttees?
The evidence collected by Raffaele D'Amato and myself, both written and iconographic for leg wrappings and bindings will be published shortly, most of it is at the publishers now.
A soldier with leg wrappings, that is the square shaped pieces of material rather than the strip 'puttee' type which are leg bindings, has already been illustrated and reconstructed in Roman Military Clothing 3. The colour plate is based on a soldier from the mosaics a Santa Maria Maggiore where the leg wrappings worn with trousers are blue. Similar leg wrappings are shown in the mosaics at Constantinople were they are black with yellow ties. Black wrappings over white trousers also appear in a fresco from Bawit. Guardsmen wear purple leg wrappings in the Rabula gospel from Syria.
While it is likely that not every figure on the Piazza Armerina mosaic is military others have been identified as soldiers. M. Speidel even argues that some figures are Imperial Guards due to their highly decorated tunics some of which were clearly made with gold thread, while other figures have the familiar propeller belt plate stiffeners.
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
