Legio V Alaudae Home
The Fifth Legion's Roman Leather Tent in Progress
Tent Details
Our main resource was the Van Driel- Murray Article "New Light on Old Tents from the Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies Vol 1 1990. The article examines several pieces of a tent from Vindolanda and compares them to other finds. The Vindolanda tent finds were from a high walled tent with a more flat roof angle (perhaps an officers tent?). On trajans column many steep angled tents can be seen right along side the high walled.
For our tent, we wanted to make a shorter walled contubernia tent with a steeper roof angle, and had to change some things accordingly. Our tent is truly unique. It is by no means the first attempt at a Roman tent, but our tent is OUR best guess from the resources available of what a Roman steep roofed, short walled tent would have looked like.
The rectagular panels in the Van Driel Murray article have a standard size of 20x 30 inches which we stuck to. We also used the same seams as seen on the Vindolanda finds. However, we aren't trying to make an exact copy of the Vindolanda finds. Instead, we are studying them to understand the tent making techniques and using that knowledge to make our best guest at what a short walled tent would have been like. The floor of the tent is 10'x10' and its about 6 feet tall in the center. Its just tall enough to be able to stand if you are perfectly in the middle. The walls are a little over a foot tall.
We can proudly say that a sewing machine has had no part in making the tent. Every stitch in the tent was put in by a member of the Fifth Legion. If you are looking from the outside, no stitching can be seen on the roof. The Romans sewed this way to prevent water leaking in through the seams. The only place that thread can be seen from the outside is at the bound hem, where the doors and roof come together. Pieces of tent of both goatskin and calveskin have been found. We used cow skin of 2 oz thickness and thinner. (about calveskin thickness) The hides we found were about the size of calveskins, but we guess that they are more likely cow half hides. Either way, they are the right thickness, weight, and went through the correct tanning process so we weren't worried about the age of the animals in question. Whatever age, THEY LOOK GOOD AS A TENT!!
November 25
Our tent as of November 25.
December 16
Adam Greene, Justin Holeman, Daniel Pigg, Justin Hatcher, and Robert Wear all worked on getting more roof squares put together
December 17
Daniel started attaching two long sections of roof together. Robert finished making the 3rd long section of roof.
December 18
Robert and Daniel continued on the roof. Robert tunnel stiched the 14' seam that Daniel had sewn the night before. Daniel sewed the 3rd quarter of the roof on. Its actually starting to look like tent!
December 19
Our first night under the tent! haha. Justin Holeman, Adam Greene, Andrew Liddel, Robert Wear, Steven All helped. Adam finished tunnel stiching the roof, bringing us to 3/4 of the roof complete. We also started and finished the short wall sections, and cut out the leather for the small rain flaps.
wow were goofy..... Its pictures like these that keep me from telling girls about our website. But can you blame us? Its 4 AM and we had been sewing for 14 hours straight.
2007
January 6
We put together 9 rectangles in a long sheet for the last 1/4 of the roof. We then attached that section to the existing 3/4 section. We started to tunnel stitch that section but only got a couple feet finished before going to sleep. Robert Wear, Andrew Liddel, Adam Greene, Justin Hatcher, and Justin Holeman all joined in the sewing.
January 7
The ROOF IS FINISHED! We worked on two different sections at the same time and had to move upstairs and move furniture because the work table wasn't large enough anymore. While Adam and Robert tunnel stitched the roof, Andrew started to sew the wall and wall flaps on one side of the roof.
How We Connected the Walls and Rain Flaps
It took a long time (and much debate) to figure out just exactly how to connect the walls, flaps, and roof. Many of the previous short walled tent reconstructions have placed the eyelet reinforcement patches on the flaps. On the vindolanda tent, they were placed on the wall a couple inches under the junction with the wall and the straps went clear through the wall. The flap then simply laid over the straps and kept water from getting in through the small holes in the wall. The vindolanda tent was a high walled tent so we moved the reinforcement patches up a little closer to the main seam, but the basic design we kept. Our plan can be seen below. #1 is the first step in sewing the roof, rain flap, and walls (and welt) together in that order from top to bottom. #2 A tunnel stitch is added so that the seams will overlap and allow rainwater to run off properly. #3 Shows how they would look without tension #4 shows what the connection will look like when tension is added from the grounding lines.
January 8
Robert finished sewing on the wall and wall flaps on one side of the tent. That side still needs a tunnel stitch
January 9
The tunnel stitch on the first wall and flaps is nearly finished.
January 13
We started out working at Roberts house. With a workforce of James Howard, Brandon Goodwin, Andrew Liddel, Adam Greene, Cory Oliver, and Robert we finished both walls and began planning and cutting for the door flaps. At that point we had about 30 smaller pieces of leather that all had to be measured and compared for the doors. In need of space, Andrew, Robert, and Adam all moved to Adams house and invaded the photo studio at about 10:00 PM, and sewed on until about 3:00 AM. Unfortunately, we ran out of small linen thread, so we couldn't tunnel stitch anything on the doors until we found more.
January 14
Adam and Robert worked all day on the doors stopping at random intervals to argue over stupid things. (By this time the sewing was hurting our minds a little) Andrew came for a couple hours as well. By the end of the day, two doors were finished and the other two were very near completion.
January 15
We started out in the morning by laying out the tent and making sure everything lined up correctly. Luckily there were no suprises or heartaches. Robert and Adam started adding door one to the tent, while Steven Bulman and Andrew finished up doors 3 and 4. All cutting (other than some small welts and such) is finished. Now we just have to finish adding the doors to the roof, and when we get more linen thread, tunnel stitching the doors.
January 19
Adam and robert started the frame. Leaving some of the last adjustments unfinished for later fine tuning. They also worked on finishing the front 2 doors.
January 20
Andrew, Adam, and Robert worked on the tent at Adam's house. They attached the back two doors. There are still lots of little things to finish up, but the tent can now stand on the frame fully functional as a tent. We don't have any photos of the tent standing up yet because it was raining all day and the tent hasn't been waterproofed.
January 26
THE TENT CAN NOW STAND!! (If we help it) We finished all the bound hems, which means that the tent will hold its shape when under tension. We also finished the frame and partially set up the tent to make adjustments. Below you can see our design for the frame. The roof support beam needs to be 10 feet long. (as long as the tent) This length makes it a bit difficult to pack on the contubernia's mule, and even the Chevy Tahoe. We decided to break it into two pieces as the twentieth legion's tent is done. However, instead of having a third pole in the middle we used leather strips under high tension. To prevent the leather from stretching we widened the surface area of the connection. (farthest to the right) We will see how well it holds up in the days to come.
January 27
THE TENT CAN STAND! Today we finished the ground lines and stakes, and set up the tent for the first time. Below you can see pictures of everyone who was over today posing with the tent.
What Remains?
We haven't finished some of the tunnel stitching on the door flaps. We also need some sort of overlap in the doors, and we haven't added tie straps yet.
OTHER SITES
Legio XX Tent and Camp page
Legio XX leatherworking tips page. Has good diagrahms of the proper Roman seams.
Caeleron.net Tent Page Shows a reconstruction of a high walled tent such as the one found at Vindolanda and discussed in the Van Driel-Murray article.
COW COUNT
After all the obvious cutting was finished, 18 cows were sacrificed to keep Romans dry. Thank you Mr. Cow, you will not be forgotten!
