Sunday, February 9, 2014

"Tracht der Achaimeniden" illustrations available online

Sean Manning of Book and Sword alerted me that Dr. Stefan Bittner has put the illustrations to his thesis online.  This is a great collection of line drawings copying and clarifying a wide variety of ancient illustrations of Achaemenid clothing and military equipment, very helpful if you find monochromatic rock carvings a little unclear.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Madder-dyed leather

To give you an example of what results a period leather dye might produce, a recent thread at RAT alerted me of several items Martin Moser made and dyed with genuine madder.

Vindolanda Calceus
Drawstring Bag

As you can see, it's a bit rusty rather than pure, deep red.  The leather is alum-tawed so presumably it would have been a light color to begin with.  Possibly leather that starts off brown, like a fat-cured hide that's been heavily smoked, will produce a somewhat deeper (albeit brownish) color.