Friendship-bracelets as pteruges

[Zarathustra]

Hi!

While researching on a Linothorax I came across a finding from masada, which was suggested to be part of pteruges.



Below was also a picture of two rows of Pteruges, which looks very similar to the mosaic of Alexander the great in Pompeij



Link to the original article: https://www.linothorax.de/alternative-konstruktion/

Granger Taylor, H. 2012: Fragments of Linen from Masada, Israel – the Remnants of Pteryges? – and Related Finds in Weft- and Warp-twining including several Slings. In: M. Nosch (Hrsg.), Wearing the Cloak. Dressing the Soldier in Roman Times. Ancient Textiles Series 10. Oxford 2012

What do you think? Elswhere on RAT I read that pteruges in art were mostly white or brown - which could be a hint, that they were made of linen in a similar way, as dying linen is difficoult.
Also the way of construction would make more sense to me than the pteruges being just a thin stripe of wool, as they were originally a part designed to give protection. All images i saw showed fringed edges, which could be explained by this method of construction.

As far as I understand this, possibly the pteruges were made in the same way as friendship bracelets. I can hardly imagine Augustus wearing these as pteruges

[Crispianus]

Hi!

While researching on a Linothorax I came across a finding from masada, which was suggested to be part of pteruges.

Below was also a picture of two rows of Pteruges, which looks very similar to the mosaic of Alexander the great in Pompeij

Link to the original article: https://www.linothorax.de/alternative-konstruktion/

Granger Taylor, H. 2012: Fragments of Linen from Masada, Israel – the Remnants of Pteryges? – and Related Finds in Weft- and Warp-twining including several Slings. In: M. Nosch (Hrsg.), Wearing the Cloak. Dressing the Soldier in Roman Times. Ancient Textiles Series 10. Oxford 2012

What do you think? Elswhere on RAT I read that pteruges in art were mostly white or brown - which could be a hint, that they were made of linen in a similar way, as dying linen is difficoult.
Also the way of construction would make more sense to me than the pteruges being just a thin stripe of wool, as they were originally a part designed to give protection. All images i saw showed fringed edges, which could be explained by this method of construction.

As far as I understand this, possibly the pteruges were made in the same way as friendship bracelets. I can hardly imagine Augustus wearing these as pteruges :

I think you could easily use woven strips as pteruges at least the more detailed art would suggest so... my preference would be for tablet woven, which would be relatively easy to do though time consuming, but have the advantage of being quite thick and flexible with none of the problems of leather curling...

[Zarathustra]

I do not have anything tablet woven, also Dr. Boris Burandt suggested to me that tablet weaving wasn't very common among romans, so I dont know how good the defensive capabilities of a strip of tablet woven pteruges is. The twined ones look realy thick, so I'm reading how to do them and then maybe experiment.

[Crispianus]

I do not have anything tablet woven, also Dr. Boris Burandt suggested to me that tablet weaving wasn't very common among romans, so I dont know how good the defensive capabilities of a strip of tablet woven pteruges is. The twined ones look realy thick, so I'm reading how to do them and then maybe experiment.

Generally your talking about multiple layers of pteruges, the type and thickness of the tread used will have some effect here, Tablet weaving using a similar thread should be a similar thickness...

Heres a few Tablets Dated 2nd cent AD one from Caerleon (also in bronze sheet) another from Londinium (more then one found) more or less identical, there are other similar examples from other sites, Tablet weaving takes a lot of time though and is difficult to maintain the tension without some kind of setup, especially since the weave is all in the same direction.

A possible example:

   

Also plain weaving can produce some good results, heres a belt I wove the heddle is based on a roman example, made from plastic sheet rather then bone, and likely the quickest easiest method:

   

I think the book you need is "Wearing the Cloak: Dressing the soldier in Roman Times" as it contains the article with the Masada Linen (which goes into quite some detail) and another on Etruscan Linen Armour.

[Feinman]

Damn! I hadn't seen those reconstructions before, and I'm about 1/3 of the way done with a complete linothorax. I think Twining was also used. Happily all is still well. Need more coffee...

[Crispianus]

Damn!  I hadn't seen those reconstructions before, and I'm about 1/3 of the way done with a complete linothorax.  I think Twining was also used.  Happily all is still well.  Need more coffee...

I think the remains from masada make a strong case, particularly the carbonised piece (Granger-Taylor 2012) with two clearly definable edges and 3.2cm wide, a diagramic reconstruction of the thread pattern is also provided.
But this is rather different to the simplified reconstruction (which has no scale or measurement) as the original has about 50% more threads in width...
This suggests to me that the reconstruction is over engineered if not oversize...