• Name: The Honorable Lord Antonius Gracchus, known as Twyg
• Project: Net bag for Roman Furca
• Location: Northpass/Ostgardr
• East Kingdom Wiki Link:  Antonius Gracchus – EastKingdomWiki
• Category: Textiles

For Pennsic, I would like to make a full Roman Furca. This is the military backpack of the Roman Legionnaires. Trajan’s column shows these t-shaped poles holding many things, among them what appears to be net bags, pots, leather waterbags, and other leather bags. (Cichorius Plates – Trajan’s Column in Rome Pt. VII)) For this project, and for the quickest item, I decided to start with the net bag.

Knowing very little about net bags, I set off to find information and found a video for making net bags of twine, conveniently titled “Making a net bag for a Roman Legionary”. I didn’t have bone and wood tools for the net shuttle and gauges that make the work easier than doing it with your fingers, I decided to eyeball the tools, make them in CAD, and 3D print them.

In her video, Sally mentions using cordage for the bag material, and while I have made cordage before from long grasses on my property, I decided that figuring out a pattern of knots would be challenging enough, so I used hemp twine for my material instead of making enough cordage. While the 3D-printed gauge and shuttle worked fine, a natural material for the tools would certainly feel better and be period-accurate. They would feel better due to its weight and smoothness. I tried two different shuttle types and found both were fine, though the hole gauge was a consideration.

The first rows were the hardest, both for learning new knots and keeping the project from sliding. Like crocheting, a tricky first row can ruin the remainder of the project. I redid the first loops four times until I found a good rhythm, and the hemp twine softened, making the knots easier to tie. After making the bag, I washed it in cold water and let it dry with a bowl inside to shape it. The wash helped clean the factory dirt and loosen the fibers. Once dry and softer, I threaded leather through the top, hung it to dry, and later used it to store a bottle and other items on my Roman Furca.

• Name: Dame Lillia de Vaux
• Project: Embroidered Tiraz for Jibril ibn ‘Ammar al-Fayyad
• Location: Shire of Hartshorn-dale
• East Kingdom Wiki Link: https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Lillia_de_Vaux
• Category: Textiles

Tiraz (a Persian word meaning ‘embroidery’) are embroidered or tapestry-woven bands affixed to the sleeves, often given as gifts. They often include decorative motifs (like animals or geometric and floral designs) and Arabic script, often religious in nature. I used 8th-early 13th century examples from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), Walters Art Museum (Baltimore), the now-National Museum of Asian Art (Washington, DC), and the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto), as inspiration. 

Due to the need to include the badge for the Order of the Mark, and a large amount of text, I made the choice to put the Arabic along the top and bottom edges, and fill the center with the order badge and one of the recipient’s badges. The intent had been to also include more decorative elements in the centers of the bands, but there was not enough time to complete that in time for Jibril’s elevation.

In this case, I wrote the text based on inscriptions found in L.A. Mayer’s Saracenic Heraldry (see https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.178234/). This book provides Arabic transcriptions from architectural features and physical objects like ewers and lamps, along with English translations. These inscriptions usually follow a praise language pattern, naming the person to whom they are given, giving titles or honorifics, and saying who gave them and when. Similar inscriptions can also be found in tiraz fragments, such as one from c.1020-35 at the Met (no. 55.69.6, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451209): 

…[to the Ser]vant of God and his friend ‘Aly Abu’l Hasan the Imam az-Zahir, I’izaz din’allah Commander of the Faithful (one band)

– [blessings] of Allah upon him and on his ancestors the pure Imams. From what was ordered to be made by the vazir, the most illustrious [name not legible] (other band)

A late 10th C example at the Met (no. 55.69.4, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451207) also contains the year it was made:

[Ab]u’l-Mansur the Imam al’Aziz billah, Commander of the Faithful, the blessings of God upon him. Of what was ordered to be made in the public factory in Tuna, year 375 [985/6 CE] al-Hasan ibn Salim

As the recipient is not Muslim, special care was taken to avoid appropriative religious language. The text was reviewed and translated to Arabic by Baronesa Sara al-Garnatiyya from Meridies, with minor modifications to make it flow better in Arabic: 

Bottom tiraz (left arm):

We wish success and happiness unto our most skilled archer, the warrior at our frontiers, the

beloved of the people, Jibril ibn ‘Ammar al-Fayyad. Let his victories be glorious.

نتمنى لك السلام والسعادة يا أمهر رامي سهام بيننا,محارب حدودنا, محبوب من

الجميع,جبريل بن عمار الفياض. أتمنى أن تكون جميع انتصاراته مجيدة.

Top tiraz (right arm):

The supporter of the Eastern kingdom, the chosen servant of King Donovan

Shinnock and Padshah Begum Chatricam Meghanta, may their glory last forever.

This work was finished in the 60th year from our Society’s founding

من أنصار المملكة الشرقية، وخادم الملك دونوفان شينوك والملكة بيغوم شاتريكام ميغانتا، أدام لله

مجدهما إلى الأبد. تم إنجازه في السنة الستين من عمر جمعيتنا.

The ground is a yellow/gold silk provided by Sisuile Butler from the stash of Master John MacGuire, a dear friend of the recipient, after his passing. 

A projector was used to initially mark out the badge of the Order, cleaned up using circle templates, and a lightbox was used to trace the arrowhead badges and the Arabic script.

There was a relatively short time to complete the project once the translation was available, so the embroidery was done with 3 strands of Splendor silk embroidery floss that I already had on hand rather than a more period-style of floss. To keep the script legible at this size (approx. 36 pt), floss that matched the ground was used to help define some of the letters. Most of the embroidery is done in split stitch, with some outlining. The same gold silk was used to hem the bands.