Friday, February 1, 2013

Roman Vienna Tools

 Vienna was once a Roman City.  Water came in aquaducts from the Vienna Woods, and boats cruised up the Danube River.  A large city grew up here.  The Roman city is still here, albeit pretty much underneath the present city. Since this is an armouring blog, I thought I would post some of the pictures of the tools which were used by those Romans far away!

Above a Fransica style curved axe, paired with a mattock.  The axe might have been a war weapon, though I doubt it, but it IS a little small to be a hatchet.  The hatchet below is more what I think of when I think of a hatchet.  The swept lines of the "beard" are a joy to behold!
      Click on the pictures to embiggen them, of course.  Feel free to download them and use them in your own collection. 


Below shows the very modern looking needles, and stuff for net making.  The antler shows all the wear one would expect from a career of net making.  


Below, a knife with a VERY robust tang.  Roman knives are almost never so robust, so this little knife was made for very heavy jobs.    The chisels we use today for cutting and shaping stone look exactly the same as the wide bladed one below!



Another mattock.  This one as well was made from iron, and therefore could not have been cast...the Romans never cast iron.  But this is a pretty heavy lump of iron!  Remember, iron was much more valuable then than now.



This beautiful adze is an absolute work of art! I wondered about that spine on the top face for some time, until I realized that the re-enforcing spine you can so clearly see does not come even close to the actual cutting edge.  

ip-location map zoom