When Jon and I decided to undertake the project to produce a third edition of Roman Military Equipment, we set out a few criteria. High amongst these was the need for the book to feel worth the investment of money for any potential reader who had one of the earlier editions. So, to reflect the fact that the book would include significant new discoveries, we decided that the illustrations should be revised, incorporating some new or different finds, and removing others. We also wanted to own the copyright of all of the line drawings, so that we could license all of them with a Creative Commons licence, allowing others to make use of them. Thus, reluctantly, Jaap Morel’s drawing of the Velsen dagger (Figure 45 in edition 2) would have to go, as would Annie Gibson-Ankers’s drawing of the Croy Hill legionary relief (Figure 73 in that edition), originally produced for the cover of Jon’s BAR of the proceedings of the fourth ROMEC in 1987 (published in 1988).

Cover of BAR S394, with the stipple image of the Croy Hill relief.

At the same time, just as I had changed the ‘look’ of the drawings between editions 1 and 2, I wanted to do something a little different for the third edition by incorporating tone to indicate the materials used. This would enhance the appearance of the drawings but also provide more information for the reader in an intuitive form.

As an example, let’s look at decorated dagger scabbards. Having already produced a colour illustration of the recently discovered and conserved dagger from Haltern (DEU), it was a (fairly) simple matter to convert this to monochrome, reflecting the materials used, to replace the Velsen drawing.

Comparison of the coloured illustration of the Haltern dagger and scabbard (left) and a monochrome version (right) employing the material tone conventions for B&C3. Images: MCB

However, the Velsen scabbard was too good to lose completely, so it was worth adding to the main page of dagger scabbards. Similarly, the scabbards there were rather muddled and needed moving around into a more logical order. The Allériot (FRA) scabbard had to go (the published description of materials employed was too vague too identify the materials used) and the plain Mainz (DEU) scabbard essentially duplicated the Leeuwen (NLD) item which, although there was some raised detail, was not inlaid. Adding one of the Usk (GBR) scabbards added variety and filled out the story of early Principate dagger scabbards.

Comparison of the B&C2 illustration of Principate dagger scabbards (left) and the draft B&C3 version (right) employing the material tone conventions for B&C3. Images: MCB

This, then, provides the logic for the different order of the pieces, the appearance of some new ones and exclusion of others, as well as the overall ‘look’ in one of the illustrations, and the substitution of another.

The drawings for B&C3 are still at the draft stage and things may change in due course, but this at least will give a flavour of what is to come.