Site Vindolanda Context Vindolanda Excavation year 1985

Preservation state organic Relative quality medium weight Fabric structure 2/2 twill Twill pattern diamond

Other features The assemblage TT/85/029 reflects a major repair and/or recycling episode. The original 2/2 diamond twill ‘ground weave’ is represented by the small fragments 029/001/2, 029/001/3, 029/001/4, plus the loose scrap 029/002. The first 3 are arranged around 3 edges of 029/001/1, a rectangular patch measuring c.130 by 140+mm. The fourth edge of the patch is raw, but the scrap 029/002 might once have been attached to it. French seams c.8-10mm wide executed in a striking dark glossy 2-ply thread (?of goat hair) secure the patch to the ground weave. The patch may have been sewn to 029/001/3 first, then to the other 2 or 3 sides afterwards. Patch and ground weave fragments are all in a distinctive medium-weight 2/2 diamond twill (Z/S and Z/2S alternating with 2Z, c.10-11/10 per cm) (repeat over 12 warp/6 weft [d2r/ d1l]), dark brown and now bare of nap. How the zones of purely S-spun weft and the spin-patterning 2S/2Z related to one another in the original textile is obscure.