1st Century tent authenticity issue, need advice.

[sillious saurus]

I need to get a tent and I am a bit confused. I notice pretty much everyone I have been around has canvas tents as a it seems the leather ones are prohibitively expensive to most. I saw online the Panther Primitives Contubernium Tent, but after hardware for the tent, taxes and shipping it will cost me about $400. I dont have that type of money at this time. I have been going to events, and waiting til its dark and them putting up my little crappy modern tent, then tearing it down early in the morning. A couple of the people have said to just buy a plain canvas A-Frame tent for $150 and thats fine.

http://www.fcsutler.com/fccanvas.asp

Will I become of source of embarrassment and ridicule for doing so? Will something like that stick out and get me nitpicked. I really dont take much grief over my modern one, because like I said--I wait til dark and pitch it as far away from the real tents as I can. But I dont want to spend the money, if I am going to look like equally as much a loser with the canvas as I do with the nylon pup tent. Money is tight these days. Thoughts?

[Magnus]

I'm pretty sure that won't cut it. Basically, if you want to go canvas, it should still look like Matt Amt's legio XX tent that is made out of leather.

www.larp.com/legioxx/

[sillious saurus]

I'm pretty sure that won't cut it. Basically, if you want to go canvas, it should still look like Matt Amt's legio XX tent that is made out of leather.

www.larp.com/legioxx/

It looks like an A-Frame style tent on the Legio XX website. Is that not an A style and I am missing something?

I have heard about people painting them to look like leather, is that what you meant?

[Magnus]

No, look at the sides. The A frame tent you posted has no verticle sides. Roman tents had short verticle ones below the main drappy thing (that's a techincal term there. ). The Legio XX tent has "The side walls are about 14 inches high--there is some controversy concerning the height of the sides, due to the discovery at Vindolanda of the corner of a tent with walls three feet high and a more shallow roof."

Honestly, save up and by one of the ones that Rusty sells. For $400 bones you can paint it and have a great tent, or do what Lee Holeva did and buy the pre-painted/coloured canvas and sew your own.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

scroll down and look at the one called a wall tent! very similar!

[gaiusseptimiuslucianus]

Kevin,

If you went with the "small wall tent" on that site it would cost you $234. You don't need the sod cloth (a waste of money IMHO), poles are easy to make (perfect your dumpster diving skills for lumber) and you can even make stakes out of wood, you don't need their iron ones. Heck if you wanted it, I'd send you a bag of wooden stakes that I'm planning to get rid of! So with shipping you are probably looking at about $265. That's a pretty good price to get yourself into a wall tent.

Lucianus

[sillious saurus]

Great thanks for the input everyone. I will wait and get a wall tent. If I can save another $100 I might as well get the right thing instead of being half ass about it.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

No, look at the sides. The A frame tent you posted has no verticle sides. Roman tents had short verticle ones below the main drappy thing (that's a techincal term there. ). The Legio XX tent has "The side walls are about 14 inches high--there is some controversy concerning the height of the sides, due to the discovery at Vindolanda of the corner of a tent with walls three feet high and a more shallow roof."

Honestly, save up and by one of the ones that Rusty sells. For $400 bones you can paint it and have a great tent, or do what Lee Holeva did and buy the pre-painted/coloured canvas and sew your own.

Thats an interesting line about the vindolanda tent...perhaps an officers tent?

[Hibernicus]

Legio IX can get the basic Panther Primitives Roman Papilio for $224. S$H varies based on where its shipped to.. figure $25 on average within the USA. Shipping is about 4 weeks direct from Panther.

The sod cloth, a length of canvas at the base of the walls that goes into the tent, on top of which you place a ground cloth, is an additional $28.80

We have found the sod cloth to be of great use espeically in blowing rain and dust.

If you buy peeler core poles (tree stakes) from your hardware or garden store expect to pay about $20 , two 8' one 10' cut to fit. Or you can use sappling poles you harvest yourself from a local woods.

You need 30 feet of rope, 52 stakes.. wood'll certainly do. Scrounge some. Use sticks!

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Why not buy it from Panter directly? http://www.pantherprimitives.com/ Fantastic folks to deal with!

[Neuraleanus]

The romans made their tents from tanned goat skin. When oiled goat skin takes on a dark redest brown color. Vegetable tanned goat skin is not only expensive but rather difficult to find. Enough for a roman tent will run several thousand dollars. A substitute is pyrotone. This is a modern cotton/poly blend impregnated with paint. I purchased a 30 yard roll of pyrotone, more than enough for the entire tent for $300USD. Of course, you need to get an industrial quality sewing machine to do the stitching. The plans are on Florentius's site:

[url:1qamjbtd]http://www.florentius.com/tent.htm[/url]

Here is my own page on the tent:

[url:1qamjbtd]http://www.geocities.com/legio_tricesima_cohors_tres/campusMartis/conturbernium/ContuberniumTent.html[/url]

The project took me about 9 months to complete. This time included learning how to use the sewing machine, making the frame, and applying additional paint to the pyrotone. Do not try to paint Cotton Duck canvas, as it will wringle and not look anything like real oiled goatskin.

Another reason to go with the high side wall tent is that the actual panels from this tent have been found. As far as I know, the primary evidence for the low side wall tent is Trajan's column. The archaeological evidence for the low side wall tent is very circumstantial.

[Hibernicus]

Why not buy it from Panther directly?

The retail cost of the Roman papilio from Panther is about $265

Buy one through me and get a courtesy discount.

Regarding canvas painted to look like canvas. I admire the efforts many have made but in my opinion painted canvas looks like painted canvas. Perhaps its partly because I know what a goatskin papilio looks like.

[Neuraleanus]

Regarding canvas painted to look like canvas. I admire the efforts many have made but in my opinion painted canvas looks like painted canvas. Perhaps its partly because I know what a goatskin papilio looks like.

At the recent RomanDays it was amazing how many people I fooled into thinking my tent was made of leather. I took my goatskin scutum cover to the local hardware store and I had a gallon of paint mixed up to match. I brushed the slightly thinned out paint over the base color of "Tera cotta". The key to success was the choice of material. Unlike cotton duck, from which most canvas tents are made, pyrotone readily takes additional paint. Only upon close examination can you tell the difference.

[Hibernicus]

Lee, I think you've done an excellent job! Kudos, for sure!!

But...

[Magnus]

I think given the general inaccuracies in our gear regardless of how high we set "the bar" that painted canvas to represent leather, given the HIGH cost of a leather tent is feasible.

And besides, a canvas tent that looks like leather up until a few feet away can't be any worse than your giant seggie breast plates Sean. :wink: