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Whilst I am aware that many re-enactors put pieces of coloured cloth behind the openwork appliques on their shield covers to make the detail stand out, I am led to believe that cloth has yet to be identified on shield covers. I occurs to me that cloth inserts would to rot over time, hastened by bad weather during campaigns or route marches and could end up looking very ragged or non-existent long before the end of a shield cover's useful life. What, if any, evdence is there for coloured leather in place of the assumed cloth? A leather insert could be expected to last the full life of a shield cover and could, I believe, be coloured in a number of ways to contrast with the rest of the cover. Whilst I would expect that any preserved examples would now be the same colour as any other piece of leather which has lain in peat for nineteen centuries, their presence could be established by the existence of an openwork applique backed with another piece of leather. My question therefore is: has such a piece been found?<br>
I await the responses of those who know.<br>
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Crispvs <p></p><i></i>
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Crispus,<br>
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Working along your train of thought, the colour showing through the open leatherwork would likely have been painted. If so there would be no reason to have an additional piece of 'coloured' leather between the appliquesand the actual cover, as this could have been painted directly.<br>
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So perhaps your looking for evidence of paint between layers or at least on the back of the applique. I'm not sure how well roman paint survives in peaty conditions, I'd guess poorly if at all.<br>
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So to summarise, your looking for evidence of paint on leather, or two backed pieces of leather (one with openwork), which has probably been in peat for 1900 years and we are assuming that this artifact actually came from a scutum cover and not some other item!! You don't want much do you?<br>
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Best of luck to you in finding the evidence your after, failing that, you've come up with sound reasoning..... make it anyway, cause a bit of controversy!<br>
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Mummius <p></p><i></i>
This is an excellent point,<br>
i've recently completed a cover for my shield, and whilst researching have found no evidence for coloured cloth backing, which i suspect is some reenactors guesswork which has been copied so many times that it has become a truism. for my cover, i simply made an applique from darker leather, though in retrospect a dyed piece would have been far more attractive, (this is also suggested by the author of the report on early excavated leather work and shield covers from Vindonissa...) alternatively, as you suggest, the backing may have been dyed, imagine a bright red shield cover....yuk!<br>
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Dont forget that the stitching also adds much to the look and definition of the item, i have reproduced the capricorns from the Roomburg cover, in which much internal detail of the beasties are picked out in stitching.<br>
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I have heard dark rumours of brightly dyed appliques from either Egypt or Syria, though i do not know much more about these... <p></p><i></i>
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<em>I have heard dark rumours of brightly dyed appliques from either Egypt or Syria, though i do not know much more about these...</em><br>
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I have a vague recollection of Carol van Driel-Murray telling me there was coloured leather from Qasr Ibrim, but I could be wrong on that.<br>
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Mike Bishop <p></p><i></i>
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If I remember rightly, the coloured appliques came from Qasr Ibrim in Egypt and were described by Carol van Driel-Murray in a paper presented at RoMEC in 1999 at South Shields (which unfortunately did not make it into the 2000 JRMES). I remember her mentioning pink and yellow pieces of leather woven together and mounted(?) on a patch reminiscent of appliques found on shield covers. Unfortunately, as far as I know, no shield covers were found which could have confirmed the identification. She made the point at the time that if shield cover appliques were made in pink and yellow leather, then the shield covers themselves may very well have shared these colours as well.<br>
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Crispvs <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=crispvs>Crispvs</A> at: 7/26/04 12:45 am<br></i>
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers. :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:
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I will meet an archaeologist from Switzerland this weekend who is a good friend of Carol van Driel-Murray. She also knows more about the dyed leather.<br>
Hope I don't forget to ask her<br>
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<p></p><i></i>
Florian Himmler (not related!)
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I have a question about who made these appliques. I read in one of her JRMES shield cover articles (not sure which) that they were probably made in one workshop and distributed across the empire. (As opposed to a unit making it's own.) Does anyone have any more info on that? What time period was this? Did the workshop make the whole cover, or just the decoration? Did this sort of centralized manufacturing occur for other equipment? <p></p><i></i>
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<em>they were probably made in one workshop and distributed across the empire. (As opposed to a unit making it's own.) Does anyone have any more info on that? What time period was this? Did the workshop make the whole cover, or just the decoration? Did this sort of centralized manufacturing occur for other equipment?</em><br>
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Geocentric notions don't really work for Roman military equipment and all the available evidence (admittedly not much) points towards local production (mainly by the army themselves) rather than any centralised system and are often driven by comparison with anachronistic 'parallels'. The exception to this seems to have been the <em>patera/trulla/trullus</em> (or whatever the trendy name is for frying pans these days) which were mainly made in bronze (not brass) in Italy and shipped round the empire to the army. Centralisation certainly appears in the later empire.<br>
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This whole issue will be discussed in some depth in a certain forthcoming book ;-)<br>
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Mike Bishop <p></p><i></i>
You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles
Blogging, tweeting, and mapping Hadrian\'s Wall... because it\'s there
which book is that then???<br>
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does the book come with an automated return to owner mechanism - so when you lend it to someone............you do eventually see it again?<br>
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regarding leather- IIRC Carol van driel Murray talked about leather colouring for shoes?<br>
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also IIRC the treatment required for colouring leather precluded waterproofing- so coloured leather was more likely in Egypt etc unless for indoors use in northern Europe <p><img src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.martin/forum/mark.gif
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