04-08-2011, 06:52 AM
I am far from convinced that guy ropes on the inside of a tent would be of much value. Certainly they could be set up in a neat pattern in either of the ways suggested, but I doubt that they would be doing anything to hold the tent up in those positions, which is, after all, what guy ropes are mainly intended to do.
I have slept in tents of many types over the last thirty years. My experience is that tent material, especially heavier weight material such as canvas or (especially) goatskin, is inclined to naturally pull inwards thanks to the downward force of gravity. I would think that guy ropes on the inside would compound this problem, as they would pull from the inside (ie: inwards), whereas guy ropes on the outside counteract the problem of the fabric pulling inwards by restraining the fabric. This is the case even in tents with frames (apart from the type of modern tent which features flexible elasticated poles).
If you can show me evidence that internal guy ropes would be in any way effective I would be very pleased to hear it.
Changing subject somewhat, I noticed that in the last picture posted up on the first page of the thread, the two smaller tents with very prominent rings for guy ropes, the tents almost look like tents sitting on top of fabric walls. The upper parts strongly resemble the tent panels from Vindolanda, Newstead and other places, even having the single row of vertical panel running along below the eves to form the wall, but it looks as if the sculptor has tried to represent something he has seen a drawing of but has not understood how the tent opens and so has invented a piece underneath which can be pulled aside to allow entry. The rings are presented as if they are running around below the roof but if we are to trust the archaeological evidence they probably actually ran along the bottom of the tent (for tent pegs?) in the drawing the sculptor saw and now seem to run around the roof simply because of the spurious artistic addition below. After all, if you take away the piece below the rings you are left with almost exactly what has survived in the archaeological record and which most of us already know has no need to be any higher.
It is true that guy ropes are apparently missing from a number of the representations on the column, but then, how many people really believe that the frieze on the column is the result of empirical observation rather than a number of sculptors depicting things they had never seen themselves from a set of relatively accurate drawings sketched by someone who did know what they were depicting but did not stick around long enough to point out the mistakes the sculptors were making. In any case, it was designed to tell a story. A tent shown without guy ropes still looks like a tent to most of the people in the street below (or in either of the libraries which originally flanked the column).
Crispvs
I have slept in tents of many types over the last thirty years. My experience is that tent material, especially heavier weight material such as canvas or (especially) goatskin, is inclined to naturally pull inwards thanks to the downward force of gravity. I would think that guy ropes on the inside would compound this problem, as they would pull from the inside (ie: inwards), whereas guy ropes on the outside counteract the problem of the fabric pulling inwards by restraining the fabric. This is the case even in tents with frames (apart from the type of modern tent which features flexible elasticated poles).
If you can show me evidence that internal guy ropes would be in any way effective I would be very pleased to hear it.
Changing subject somewhat, I noticed that in the last picture posted up on the first page of the thread, the two smaller tents with very prominent rings for guy ropes, the tents almost look like tents sitting on top of fabric walls. The upper parts strongly resemble the tent panels from Vindolanda, Newstead and other places, even having the single row of vertical panel running along below the eves to form the wall, but it looks as if the sculptor has tried to represent something he has seen a drawing of but has not understood how the tent opens and so has invented a piece underneath which can be pulled aside to allow entry. The rings are presented as if they are running around below the roof but if we are to trust the archaeological evidence they probably actually ran along the bottom of the tent (for tent pegs?) in the drawing the sculptor saw and now seem to run around the roof simply because of the spurious artistic addition below. After all, if you take away the piece below the rings you are left with almost exactly what has survived in the archaeological record and which most of us already know has no need to be any higher.
It is true that guy ropes are apparently missing from a number of the representations on the column, but then, how many people really believe that the frieze on the column is the result of empirical observation rather than a number of sculptors depicting things they had never seen themselves from a set of relatively accurate drawings sketched by someone who did know what they were depicting but did not stick around long enough to point out the mistakes the sculptors were making. In any case, it was designed to tell a story. A tent shown without guy ropes still looks like a tent to most of the people in the street below (or in either of the libraries which originally flanked the column).
Crispvs
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