Re: 1st century Auxiliary cavalry

[Crispvs]

Moi,

It is not often I quote myself, but here goes:

"Therefore, it seems that the pad saddle, for all Dr Junkelmann's experience of riding, is not in accordance with what the current state of the evidence is telling us.
What we have here then, is a clash between reconstructions based on the evidence and reconstructions based on modern assumptions.

A truly scientific approach would be to take what the evidence shows us and try different ways of reconstructing it according to the evidence and using them to find out what part of the possible range is workable and what is not, before resorting to putting modern assumption before the evidence.

The Romans must have known what they were doing. Just because we still do not fully understand what they were doing it does not mean that we should throw out what we know of their practice because it does not seem to fit with our own limited experience."



The Carlisle covers PROVE the existence of frames or at least frame elements. They also seem to prove the literary evidence for there having been little or no padding. Please get used to that. We are now post 2004 Carlisle conference and thus the evidence is public. The idea of the pad saddle is pre-2004 and our understanding has moved on since then. Frankly I don't care if a pad saddle works or not. It is not in accordance with the surviving evidence and therefore is not a Roman saddle. We can still debate exactly how the bronze horn plates were attached and what exactly their true function was, but since the publication of the Carlisle covers, the continuing idea of a pad saddle is the reconstructive equivalent of a reanimated corpse.

If your saddle is to be of any worth as a reconstructive experiment, it is essential for it to be built in such a way that it wears in the same way that the Carlisle covers have worn, and that means putting frame elements which will replicate the frame revealed by the impressions in the Carlisle covers in every version you test.

Crispvs