How To.. wear the Pugio and Gladius (belts, fasteners)

[caiusbeerquitius]

No, I would disagree there. Please check my posting on the previous page. We know that the cloak was closed, hoever this could be fibulae as well, we don´t know. To clarify: Is there any evidence that is "better" than the sword-fastener evidence? Is there, apart from the Camomile relief, any other evidence?

[Marcus Mummius]

Some of us use two round wooden or horn discs and two toggles to close our paenula.

[PhilusEstilius]

I think your picture shows so much better the point I'm trying to make Jef thank you so much.

[Tarbicus]

Jef, are they normal disc shaped buttons, not the Ubl type of fastener under discussion here as seen in the Miks book?

[Marcus Mummius]

Indeed, they are just normal discs. One side has a disc or a toggle, the other side has a loop (just pieces of thin leather lace stuck trough the fabric and knotted at the back to keep them in). These are not Ubl type fasteners.

I posted this picture to show that a lot of different things can look like the Camomile Sreet soldier sculpture.

Vale,

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Exactly what I use too!

[PhilusEstilius]

The reproduction button loop fastener that I have shown at page 11 is based on the 2 originals and is around the same size as the one shown by Miks'. The others I show are smaller and just as decorative and these are about the size of the ones used by the Camomile Sreet soldier, however the larger versions are also used for clothing for they differ from the Vindonissa type very slightly. If one looks closely at the Vindonissa the attachment link at the back comes from the center of the disc where the originals I show it comes from half way along the radius of the disc. Having said that there are versions that show the attachment point anywhere from center to edge of the disc.

[Crispvs]

Brian,

Apart from the Camomile Street soldier, where the visual evidence has been convincingly shown in this thread by Jef to be ambiguous, can you point to any other evidence for these items being associated with clothing, such as position in excavated burials or something similar. The reason I ask this is that without evidence of that sort to back up the claim for them to be clothing fasteners, any such claim will never be able to be anything more than hopeful assumption.

Crispvs

[PhilusEstilius]

Crispvs. I would like you or anyone else to explain just how the suggested drawing by Miks' can show 13 to 15mm wide support straps for a sword, when infact the fastener holes they are supposed to go thro' are only in the region of 4 to 5mm internal diameter. Then when that question is answered there is the other of why these things are called Button Loop Fasteners,.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Which doesnt´ answer Crispus´question...
1. I can´t define the width of the straps in the Miks drawing, but I am sure the strips could be narrower. That doesn´t really play a role for the idea as such. The straps could be narrower at the point where they pass through the loops, could be narrower at all, or could be pulled through the hole and be bendt at that point, which would easily work. But, it doesn´t really play a role.
2. They are called button-loop fasteners because someone thought that´s a good name for the object. It doesn´t really tell us sthg. about the actual function of the object, though.... If we´d find a strigils without knowing what it is / was and we would call it "belt hook", it still would be a strigilis and not a belt hook. In German the button-loop fasteners are called "Zierscheibe mit Doppelöse" which translates as "decorative disc with double bail".

[PhilusEstilius]

Christian. I would like to know just how you cannot define the width of the straps in Miks' drawing, or indeed the internal diameter of the holes in the loop fastener they have to go thro'. Then as far as the answer to the question by Crispvs I would consider the Camomile Street soldier as enough to say clothing fastener or Button loop fastener.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Crispus asked this:

can you point to any other evidence for these items being associated with clothing, such as position in excavated burials or something similar.

And it still is not answered.

I would like to know just how you cannot define the width of the straps in Miks' drawing, or indeed the internal diameter of the holes in the loop fastener they have to go thro'.

I can easily identify the loop hole size. The width of the straps in the reco plays no role, as I explained above. In fact the leather could have been by purpose narrower where it passed through the loop holes / the loop holes smaller than the belt, so that the leather would not move. wide - getting narrower - through the loops - getting wider, wide. Just an idea, though. Still, it doesn`t matter.

Apart from that, I think the evidence is clearly favouring the Ubl-method, so why arguing any further at this time. This is getting almost religious. :roll:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Not necessarily. Just that there are more people going with one interpretation does not make a theory any more correct! :wink:

[caiusbeerquitius]

As promised, Grave 17, Idrija pri Baci.
Picture 1:

from:
Mitja Gustin, Posocje in der jüngeren Eisenzeit, Ljubljana, 1991.
Picture 2:

from:
H.-J. Ubl, Römische Helme vom Typus Weisenau in Wiener Sammlungen, in: Römische Österreich 3, 1975.
Objects are not to scale to each other.
Note the different state of preservation... ^^

Text from Ubl:
"Vom Schwertgehänge haben sich Reste des verzinnten Bronzeblechbeschlages, die Schnalle und zwei Gehängeknöpfe erhalten."

So apparently the objects were found in a clear sword-context.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Very interesting! Another time, a fastener and a segmentata type buckle in the same context. And a Mainz type guard plate.