Embossed Dagger Sheath

[Dante]

Greetings Cohorts,
I brought up this question before, however I was researching a new Peterson book ( who swears upon Roman pain of death that it is fully true ! ). In his pictures he shows a Roman dagger sheath that is nicely embossed and states that it was found in the Rhine very recently. It seems to be a match of the re-creation of the one I bought from Deepeeka. The writer doesn't mention if this was an officers weapon or not---I kind of think is was not .-----Crispvs, any thoughts on this subject again. I respect your thoughts.

STRENGTH and HONOR

Dante

[jvrjenivs]

In his pictures he shows a Roman dagger sheath that is nicely embossed and states that it was found in the Rhine very recently. It seems to be a match of the re-creation of the one I bought from Deepeeka.

Could you tell which Deepeeka pugio you mean. This will make it easier to locate which original you may point to.

The writer doesn't mention if this was an officers weapon or not---I kind of think is was not .-----Crispvs, any thoughts on this subject again. I respect your thoughts.

To me it seems that calling gear 'officers armour/weaponry' is something modern and wasn't the rule back then, so I definitely would say it is not. (although it of course could have belonged to an officer)

[Crispvs]

Unfortunately I could not venture much of an opinion without seeing the sheath or at least a picture of it. I wonder if Dan has seen the item personally. In my experience he is often a little too ready to make assumptions about things. As there is no other example of an embossed sheath that I am aware of (although I am aware of a number of embossed fakes) I am a bit suspicious of its authenticity. It is not unknown for con artists to take cheap 'reproductions' and artificially age them in order to pass them off as genuine antiquities to gullible collectors. A couple of years ago a museum paid rather a lot of money for what was obviously a cheap Indian 'Trooper' helmet, despite having been aged (perhaps hacked about a bit, left in sewage for a few months and then left out in the open for a few weeks to weather). To anyone familiar with Roman helmets it was instantly recognisable as a fake. The person at the museum who bought it clearly knew much less than he or she should have.
I am not saying necessarily that this is a fake we are talking about, but until we see the piece ourselves and are able to determine both how it has been made and where it was found (a metalurgical analyis would be useful as well) we must remain suspicious.

Do you have a picture you could post up, or perhaps a link to where you saw it?

Crispvs

[Dante]

I will try to get a picture of the dagger and sheath or at least the name of the book---the author claims all his equipment is taken from actual remains or viewed from statues and also claims his cohorts dress in the orginal style and material. But thanks Crispvs for throwing some light on this subject, I will also do a little more in depth searching into the author and view the pictures much closer! Many thanks.


Strength and Honor

Dante

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

i think the book you talk about is Roman legions recreated, published some years ago. There is a picture of a dagger similar to the deepeka's one, but it's only a bad interpretation of the original one.

If i'm not wrong, it's that pugio:

[Dante]

Greetings Lucius,
That is the exact picture I was talking about---thanks for setting me straight.


Strength and Honor

Dante

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Looks very much like the regular plain pugio, wit hsome brass plates on it!

[Crispvs]

If Dan is still trying to claim that this sheath is correct to an original find then he is simply (and willfully) wrong and should know much much better. I have advised him on the subject more than once in the past.

The one in the picture Cesar has posted up is the horrendous version Deepeeka managed to produce after seeing the picture in Dan's book 'The Roman Legions: recreated in colour photographs'. I have been trying to stamp this inaccurate abberation out of re-enactment for years now. It is based on a misinterpretation of a line drawing of an iron type 'A' sheath from Kempton, which had been decorated with inlaid silver and decorative rivets. There were never any applied plates (brass or otherwise) on this or any other known Roman dagger sheath.
In addition to this, the lower suspension rings on the Deepeeka version are placed far too low. As a small additional point, despite being labelled as embossed, there is in fact no embossing featured on the sheath anyway, the decoration on the inaccurate plates being produced by acid etching or some similar process. Not that this matters really as the whole thing is inaccurate and deserves to be thrown straight in the nearest rubbish bin.
The handle on the dagger is also wrong. The ends of the guard should not be folded round like that and the pommel is much too thick. Round pommel expansions like that also seem to have gone out of fashion some time during the reign of Augustus (as far as we know at this stage).

Crispvs

[Celer]

Salve,

As Crispus says, this little horror keeps on popping up. The original item that Dan Petersen uses was made by Michael Simpkins for Marcus Junkelmann on his long march. The strange thing is that in Junkelmann's book, as well as a picture of this reconstruction there is also a very clear B&W photo of the original which clearly shows that it was inlaid. I think that Junkelman may have been working on a budget, and so Michael Simpkins made the best he could under this limitation. Eric Konig made a correct copy of this dagger and scabbard and it cost around 2000 Euros.

Vale,

Celer.

[Matthew Amt]

I thought I remember Peterson saying that the scabbard design was a *hypothetical* construction devised by Junkelmann and/or Simkins, a completely speculative precursor to the inlaid iron style with fake or non-functional rivets at the corners of the decorative panels. Deepeeka simply grabbed the design from his book and ran with it. I banned its use in my group years ago.

IF a new artifact of this sort of construction has indeed been found, we would all love to see it, of course! But I'd be very surprised if it bore more than a passing resemblence to the Deepeeka scabbard.

Valete,

Matthew