Lorica segmentata from Caerleon

[Crispvs]

Looking at the Carlisle manicae, it is obvious that broken items were recycled, and judging not only by them but also by the remaining pieces of most shield covers which have been found (which for the most part are simply edge pieces cut from whatever could be salvaged and which are rarely illustrated in books) probably quite intensively. The exception to this is generally thought to be when units were vacating a fort and probably could not easily take their accumulated scrap with them, no matter now valuable it might have been had they stayed longer and been able to make use of it. Presumably Legio XX did not have the capacity to move ten tons of nails in one go along with everything else which had to be taken when they demolished Inchtuthil. You can carry a lot to a place in small amounts over a long period but it is much more difficult to take it all away again in one go. It may be that scrap metal saved with a view to recycling was consistently and deliberately omitted from the baggage of a departing force. The ten tons of nails could not be carried so they were buried, presumably to hide them from those who might make use of the iron to make weapons for use against the Romans. Something similar may have happened in Caerleon, although there, it seems to me to have been some entirely different scenario, perhaps closer to whatever happened at South Shields, which ensured the survival of a mail shirt.

Crispvs