- Chapter Seven -
from Sainte Anastasie (Gard) may not be very sophisticated in style,3 but the
preserved detail, especially in the former piece, is more immediate in its impact
than the emotive style of the Dying Gauls of Pergamon. They also conjure up a more
realistic impression of the Gauls who came into such bloody contact with Caesar's
legions. These warriors from Gard can be compared with the Roman interpretation
of a Celtic warrior, with sweeping moustache, long hair, and holding a sword
and shield (Figure 7.3).4 The other side of the picture, the defeated warrior killed or
captured by the Romans, can be seen on the left-hand side panel of the Bridgeness
distance slab from the Antonine Wall (Figure 7.4);5 or the late Augustan frieze
showing a battle between Romans and Gauls, and now in the Palazzo Ducale,
Mantua.^6 On a smaller scale, there are bronze figurines showing individual captives,
for instance the standing Gaulish prisoner with hands behind his back.^7
DRESS AND APPEARANCE
Unfortunately, the remains of organic materials are preserved only where the
optimum conditions obtain, either in a dry, well-drained soil, as for example in
Egypt; where the conditions are waterlogged and anaerobic; or where the material,
whether it is textile or made of wood, has come into contact with metal and left its
imprint in the corrosion products, or has itself become partly mineralized.^8 Even
some human remains may be found to have completely disappeared from the grave
in which they were laid, where the soil conditions are adverse.^9
Textiles, however, have occasionally been preserved, and in some cases even
complete garments, such as the tunics, cloaks, caps, even hairnets, which were found
in burials of bronze age date in Denmark.1O Most garments would have been made
from the raw materials most readily to hand, of which wool would be the most
common and versatile of fibres that could be spun into threads of various thickness
for weaving or netting, or could be felted. I I Other animal hair was also used, though
it would very much depend on the type of land available to support the most
appropriate beasts. Goat hair, though coarse, could be used for fabrics which could
be put to rough use, and Wild notes an insole sock of hare's wool from Basle, as well
as fragments of textile made from the fibres secreted by the Pinna nobilis (a variety of
mollusc).12 Of plant fibres, the most common was the flax which could be spun and
woven into clothes, from the finest grades - with some fabrics having up to as many
as 200 threads per inch in examples from Egypt - to the heavier coarser materials. 13
Silk and cotton would either be unavailable or totally beyond the reach of the
majority of people, but hemp and other plant fibres could be used, including those
of the nettle.^14 Once the fibres had been cleaned and prepared, the next task was to
spin them into thread using the spindle and whorl. Most spindles and distaffs would
have been of wood, but some jet examples have been found in Roman contexts.IS
In general, the finer the thread to be spun, the lighter in proportion the weight of
spindle and whorl must be. Spindle whorls of stone, baked clay, reutilized potsherds,
antler and bone, including unfused epiphyses of cattle femurs, have been found.^16
The tombstone of Regina of the Catuvellauni, set up at South Shields by her
husband, show her with distaff and spindle on her lap, and a basket with balls of