Presenting a new entry at the top of my "cool roman shoes" list:
Though it is hard to tell from the picture, these are a pair of womens calcei (shoe boots) from around 2nd-3rd century AD found at archaelogical excavation at Southfleet (Springhead), Kent. Bless that lovely british mud and its preserving properties.They are currently in the British Museum. The cool factor that sets these apart from other calcei finds is that the museum description says "Originally purple with a pale lining visible through the openwork and gilded metal thread embellishing the pattern"Purple and gold holey shoes! I am definitely making a set of these.
I decided I needed a seperate blog for doing A&S type stuff and it is way easier for me to post pics on blogger than to create my own website.
So here it is - a blog devoted to A&S projects, in particular silly shoes.
To get the ball rolling, here is a pic of my first silly shoes, the Calcei MkI
These are based on calcei from around 3rd century AD Roman Britain. A surviving shoe was found at Vindolanda (a source of many well preserved leather finds). Below is a picture of some of the finds from Vindolanda.
My calcei are starting to wear badly at the heal. The leather I used was a bit thin so it is tearing between the cut outs. I have recently bought some thicker leather to make another set using a square punch (like the top vindolanda example above).
