Show your roman belts?

[Peroni]

We have some Republican pieces!

Probably earlier than Caesarian period though. Pieces reconstructed from finds made at Numantia and Castillejo..

From B&C..


Bronze plates with brass backing...
http://www.armamentaria.com/store/index ... ucts_id=66

Bronze buckle and hinge plate...
http://www.armamentaria.com/store/index ... cts_id=103
For Caesarian you are possibly looking at twin belts with no apron with fairly plain plates similar to the silver foil-covered examples from Velsen or Kalkriese(?)

[caius aelius corvus]

Hi Peroni,

Many thanks for your pics.

I had noticed your plate and buckle before on your website but I thought that they were earlier than Cesar's time. Do you think I can use them for a legionary of the War of the Gauls ?
Concerning Kalkriese and Velsen, the finds are early 1rst AD, right ?

All the best.

Hervé CAILLAU

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I have a kalkriese belt on order, but with the wider plates, and a plain cingulum....not as bling as I would have liked, but hey, it's authentic, so there you go!!

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

I'm actually working in a new belt, based in exemplars from Vindonissa.

It's made of a thin plate of brass, embossed and decorated with punctim.

[M. Demetrius]

I'll throw mine in the mix. I started with a Deepeeka buckle, and some Albion Moat Herculaneum belt plates.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd29 ... Buckle.jpg

I opened the folded end of four of the plates and fashioned hinges for a frog, using yet another plate for the disc. I kept the disc and movable part of the hinge spaced apart by putting a brass tube around the inside shank of the rivet.



I liked the look of the copper rivets against the brass, instead of brass rivets. I used the ball end of a hammer to dome the centers, since I decided they'd look fancier that way. They do. Someday, I might tin just the domes for a little contrast.



So there it is.

[sulla felix]

Very nice work - I'm a fan of the copper rivet/brass plate contrast too. Laudes!

[M. Demetrius]

Thanks, Felix. After the picture was made, I put it on the polishing wheel. (Why not before? Duh.) and it fairly sparkles now.

Got the plates made for the balteus. I wore this belt two days in a row with a brass-sheathed Mainz. The weight of the gladius pressed the edge of the belt on my hip flexors on the right leg, and I was sore for three days after. Balteus. Not sword on the belt directly. I see why now. :wink:

[M. Demetrius]

Here's the terminal ends for the cingulum. Next comes the 5 rectangular plates for the top of the apron, then the "buttons". Haven't decided if I want to cast or stamp the buttons. But first things first, as it should be. The terminals were from the Albion moat, but I beat on them a little, trying to keep with the theme of the main belt plates.


And the baldric. Following the lead of a find reported by Adrian Wink (I think) I put brass hooks on the ends, so I can change to a different gladius and keep the same baldric. Scrimping is starting to come naturally. I don't know if that's a good thing.

[Crispvs]

Where do you get the pattern for the plates you have attached to the baldric? I don't think I have seen plates like that before, although there is some evidence for studs being attached to some sword baldrics.

"Balteus. Not sword on the belt directly. I see why now."

Ahem - a balteus IS a belt. As far as I know there is no distinction in Latin between a belt that goes around your waist and a belt which passes over your shoulder. The term 'cingulum' seems to refer to women's belts until the third century, when it seems to come into more general use as a term for both sexes. The term 'cingtus' might refer to a specifically military belt in the first century but the owners of such belts seem usually to refer to them simply as 'balteii' - belts.

Crispvs

[M. Demetrius]

I don't have any pattern or proof, Crispvs. I've read here on RAT of baltei with plates attached, and without, so I just decided I'd put them on, since I already had most of the kitchen work surfaces covered with tools and metal dust, and some brass left over.

Now it's cleaned up, and my wife wants a belt. (Different thread for that set of questions already established--there's not a lot of info I can find that clearly indicates what kind of civilian belts existed).

I guess cingULUM would indicate a diminutive, or a "little belt" which a military belt certainly is not. I use the word only because others do, and it communicates, regardless of grammatical truth or accuracy...like segmentata, which I believe was a word coined sometime in the 20th century.

[scott]

Anybody got any images/pics of mid 2nd C belt reconstructions?

Cheers in advance.

[Crispvs]

Peronis sells some suitable openwork plates made by Nodge Nolan. Have a look on his Armamentaria website or if you're not sure which plates are which I am sure he would be happy to post up a picture of an appropriate plate.

As a suggestion, you might not need to cover the entire belt with plates, as the far smaller number of second century plate finds, coupled with both the apparent lack of plates on third century belts, along with the facts that not all first century belts were completely plated and late second / early third century belts had consciously arranged sets of plates spelling out words, all suggest that a safe way to proceed with a mid second century AD belt might be to have just a few plates and a buckle, possibly grouped in such a way as to make a nice decorative spacing and / or grouping.
You might possibly think of half a dozen or less plates on the front and sides and none on the back or something similar. Unfortunately for that period we do not have the wealth of repesentational evidence to guide our interpretation as we do for the mid first century.

Crispvs

[Robbie Phillips]

I have here my first try at a set of twin belts. One has the plain plates and the other is not to be taken as a copy of anything original. Personally, I like the "mouse/loaf" design and it's discussion here on RAT. I decided to try a belt and see what it would look like. I wanted the pieces to be brass and the plates to be tinned but I had a hard time soldering the mice on without affecting the tin so I went all brass. Riviting would be to much. I may let the brass tarnish and keep the peices polished. I will eventually have to decide on an orginal belt plate type and produce a second belt.

[M. Demetrius]

Very neat! What thickness is your brass on the mouse plates?

Did you work each one individually and freehand, or make a tool to help stamp the patterns? Tinning isn't so hard on small pieces like that. Oatey's 95 does a fair job, and all you need is a propane torch. They make two kinds, an oily flux base and a water base. I recently bought some of the water kind, but haven't tried it yet. The oil base works fine, but it's sort of messy.

Can't do either one with the plates still on the belt, though, because your leather would scorch.

[Robbie Phillips]

Dem,
Thanks! The plates are about the same thickness as a door "kick plate" and the mice are a bit thinner. I hand cut each mouse from a template and hand chiseled and filed them to shape. It took awhile.
I also like the posts with your belt. The brass/copper color is nice. You also solved an issue I had concerning how to come up with pugio frog/disc that follows the motiff of the plates being used. I like how you used an extra plate and trimmed out the circle. I hope to see it in person some day!