Flax and Crests

[Anonymous]

Greetings everyone,

I started this discussion in the marketplace in a thread about horse hair suppliers, but I think it fits better here.
But, here is the link to that thread: link from old RAT

Has anyone ever tried to make a crest with Flax Strick? It dyes very well, and I hear has the consistency of horse hair.

I have not tried it (or even had any flax strick in my hands for that matter) but, am curious if anyone else has worked with it and had any thoughts.

Is it something that would have been used historically?

Flax was available and used for linen (No matter where you are on the Linothorax scale).

Flax strick (also sometimes called unbroken flax) is sold now in about 3 foot lengths and would lend itself very well to crest construction. I will need to do some research, but it could be that it was more available than horse hair at the time. But, so far, this is just a supposition...Think about the number of crests and how much hair is needed for each. I would think that flax would have been a natural choice considering it was already being used for so much.

Anyone else have experience with the stuff?

Gaius Julius Caesar mentioned this

"The crest fron Vindolanda is made of a type of grass, so why not flax?"

Has anyone confirmed the grass on this crest? Could it be flax instead of grass?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

It is that greek helmets seldom have crest attachments,thus no crests for the majority,out of the vase paintings. It is also that there are many references for horse hair crests and no other matterial mentioned.
On the other hand there is that italian crest you're talking about and as far as i know it is not even certain it was a crest. But it can't be ruled out,and if you manage to use flax to make a decent looking crest,i don't think anyone would have an objection. Or if they have,you can always explain your thought.
Khaire
Giannis

[Anonymous]

To be perfectly honest, this thought process only came up because I bought a cheap helmet on eBay for Halloween. I decided to look into other materials to use for a crest since horse hair was was a bit spendy for a one night event.

As I was researching horse hair alternatives, Flax Strick came up as an option.

Well, as I sat and thought about it I began to wonder if it COULD have been used.

And here we are. I haven't been able to come up with another source to show that this could have been done though.

I will make one out of Flax Strick and post pictures if it turns out well.

[Marcus Mummius]

An artefact, excavated at Vindolanda, and identified by the researchers as a Roman helmet crest:



http://www.vindolanda.com/excavations2001.html

This could be some other thing than a helmet crest, though...

You can find it at the bottom of the page. You can read about it in several threads on this board.

Some threads with info on the subject:

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Best Regards,

[Nikic031]

Wow,nice to see the hair survived...

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

It's actually a type of grass, if you are refering to the hair-moss Vindolanda crest.