Vindonissa leather fragments

[mcbishop]

A question to the cavalry boys, what kind of leather were the Roman cavalry saddles made of? Sheep, goat or calf?

The Castleford saddle cover pieces were goatskin, if that helps.

Mike Bishop

[Flavius Promotus]

Thanks (and laudes) for digging this up, Florian! I will have to move Gansser up on my "review" list

Thank you, but most of the glory belongs to Marquita Volken, since she was the one who came up with the idea that the 'saddle pieces' might be fragments of shoulder padding. Gannser-Burckhardt is certainly worth it, although some of his interpretations should be handled with care (see above = 'saddle padding'). BTW, I was lucky and will be moved to a school at Deggendorf in 3 weeks, which means I will most likely be able to attend the Fischer presentation at Künzing in the middle of March. If you have the time to go there, too, we could exchange data.

You might be right there, although OTOH, I personally didn't make that experience on wearing mine for 2 weeks (minus 2 days resting) 8-10 hours a day with more or less marching gear. Better shoulder padding would definitely have been nice though

Similar experiences, here. Most of the strain is on the shoulders, though interestingly I suffered from some chafing at the hips when testing my new subarmalis early in 2006 (must loose weight)

The Castleford saddle cover pieces were goatskin, if that helps.

It does - thank you Mike!

[Martin Moser]

Gannser-Burckhardt is certainly worth it, although some of his interpretations should be handled with care (see above = 'saddle padding').

Yes, I know, I looked it over once, focusing on shoes then, though, and noticed the same. Well, it was more than 50 years ago ...

BTW, I was lucky and will be moved to a school at Deggendorf in 3 weeks, which means I will most likely be able to attend the Fischer presentation at Künzing in the middle of March. If you have the time to go there, too, we could exchange data.

Very good, looking forward to it :-) )

[Mark Headlee]

Florian,

Do you have any measurments (based on the original artifacts) for the shoulder padding you recreated? This is an interesting theory for a possible subarmails and I would like to try my hand at making a pair. Any assistance would be more than welcome.

[Robert Vermaat]

I split the post into a new one, seems too interesting to be hidden as a discussion about scales.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Thought I would add another pic of leather fragments at Vindonissa.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p309 ... ure535.jpg

[/img]

[ursinius]

Avete,

Gansser-Burckhart was a professional chemist, not an archaeologist. He had to experiment with techniques to preserve the leather pieces and that was not always good for these artefacts. Also, in the late '40's they could not yet exrtract the same data from organic finds that we can do now....

I believe that the mentioned "military badge" was in his view a kind of rank designation for a "Cohortenfuehrer". He believed certain decorative patterns on shield covers and cover straps to be unit identifications within the legion.

BTW, there seems to have been found parts of leather clothing (NOT shield covers) in the 1980's in Valkenburg Castellum (NL) , among them IMHO a fringed pteruges strap.

[Martin Moser]

BTW, there seems to have been found parts of leather clothing (NOT shield covers) in the 1980's in Valkenburg Castellum (NL) , among them IMHO a fringed pteruges strap.

Sounds interesting - do you know anything more specific or is this hearsay only?