Question for Graham...Deurne shoe

[Franklin]

Resurrecting an old thread...

Martin, any chance of some more detail pics? Some close-ups of the heel and toe seams, and maybe a shot of the inside without the last?

I would greatly appreciate it.

[Martin Moser]

Martin, any chance of some more detail pics? Some close-ups of the heel and toe seams, and maybe a shot of the inside without the last?
I would greatly appreciate it.

sure, but you will have to wait a bit - this shoe (I only made one, it was a trial only) with quite a few others I did is on display at a museum exhibition until November when they'll come back to me. Sorry for the wait, but I'll gladly provide more pics for you then.

[Martin Moser]

I agree with Crispus. See the thin parts of some preserved caliga, it's ilogical it have been so thin originally.

Late answer, sorry, but I beg to differ :-) )

IMHO it would be illogical for the leather to have shrunk so much in one dimension (width) only. Some originals quite clearly show 3-4 mm thick leather straps which are less than 5mm wide and of a somewhat to be expected, normal length. Now why on earth should they have shrunk a lot in width and obviously only a little bit in thickness and length? even then, allowing for 30% shrinkage (quite a lot!) e.g., the original of a now 4mm wide strap would still only have been 6mm (or 5mm with 20% shrinkage, 4.5mm with 10%) - still on the thin side.
Then there is e.g. the Cancelleria relief, showing caligae which look a lot like the finds and feature exactly the same, thin straps. Also, there are finds that show that those straps did break - and were replaced by quite thin ones again.

OTOH, there is only one depiction of a caliga (low-cut, below ankle bone) with the very broad straps so commonly seen on many modern reproductions that I'm aware of, showing a civilian worker on a late 2nd/early 3rd cent. relief (from Neuss IIRC).

[Franklin]

Greatly appreciated Martin.

[Martin Moser]

Hello,

FYI I have made two more shoes after finds from the Netherlands, dated to the 4th (-5th?) century AD:

This one is from Deurne (as you can see the button for fastening the lace is still missing...):

[Martin Moser]

... and this one is from Cuijk:






Literature:

Driel-Murray, C. van: A late Roman assemblage from Deurne (Netherlands). Bonner Jahrbücher, 200, 2000, 293-308

Driel-Murray, C. van: Mode in de nadagen van het Keizerrijk: de schoenen van Cuijk, Westerheem 56, 2007, 133-141

[Franklin]

A++ as always.

Interesting, your Deurne shoe seems to be constructed a little differently than Aitor's reconstruction of the same shoe. Am I wrong?

[Robert Vermaat]

I'm not sure this is the same shoe?

Link to an earlier thread about the Cuijk shoes:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?p=107047

[Martin Moser]

It is the same shoe as Aitor's reconstruction (shoe 3 in the article cited above), the main difference is on the outside where the long lace gets attached. This part is not surviving with the original, so open to interpretation, both in form and method of fastening the lace. The article sugests some kind of button and this is what Aitor used as far as I can tell from the pics.

[Robert Vermaat]

And another great reconstruction. Martin, are these for a museum, a private customer or do you have hundreds of shoes around your living room? :lol:

[Martin Moser]

Martin, are these for a museum, a private customer or do you have hundreds of shoes around your living room? :lol:

I'm working in the direction of the living room option :-) )

No, seriously, for our Generationes project we need the matching shoes and I'm also showing Roman shoemaking techniques and antique shoe styles and development at museums with our group. Some of my shoes are part of an exhibition at the moment, but besides that museums have not asked for reconstructions yet.

[Martin Moser]

For the sake of completeness: here is a picture with the fastening (made from bone) in place. I made it to look a bit like the fasteing on Tetrarch's shoes at Venice which you can see here in Aitor's post.

[Luc. Ambr. Ianuarianus]

There's some really amazing work on this thread. I thought it deserved a bump.