Gregory Aldrete: preference

Transcript context

…And it’s amazing that you used all the materials they had at the time and none of the modern techniques, but I should probably say, maybe you can speak to that, they were probably much better at doing that than you are, right? Because again, generational, it’s a skill. It’s a skill that probably has practiced across decades, across centuries [inaudible 00:55:32]. I mean, in terms of producing the fabric, I’m sure they could do it 10 times faster than we could just, that’s a speed thing, but it’s still incredibly labor-intensive where I think there’s a big difference between our reconstruction and ancient ones is in the glue. So we ended up using a kind of least common denominator glue. We used rabbit glue because it would’ve been available anywhere and it’s cheap. But in the ancient world, they did have basically the equivalent of super glues. I mean, we found, for example, a helmets that were fished out river in Germany that had metal parts glued together that after 2,000 years of immersion and water were still glued together. So they had some great glues. We just don’t know what the recipes for them were. So we went the opposite tack and said, “Well, we’re just going to make something that we know they could have made.” So it was at least this good, you know what I’m saying? But actually, this is a materials thing, but I think glue, aside from helping glue things together, it can also be a thing that serves as armor. So if you glue things correctly, the way it permeates the material that is gluing, can strengthen the material……

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