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A Greek Goldsmith's Mould in the Ashmolean Museum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The monument represented in the dimensions of the original by tbe annexed figure (Fig. 1) was acquired by Mr. Arthur Evans in Corfú, in 1895, and is now in the Ashmolean Museum. It is a piece of bronze, irregularly oblong in shape, measuring 4⅞ in. in length by 1 to l⅛ in. in breadth, and ⅜ to 
in. in thickness. Each of the four long surfaces is decorated with a series of incised patterns separated by bands of ornament. There can be no doubt as to the destination of the object, which was evidently intended to serve as a mould for the manufacture of plaques, diadems, &c., in repoussé. A series of gold plaques (Figs. 2–5) have been executed from the mould by Mr. Ready, and are exhibited beside the original in the Ashmolean Museum. At the same time it may well have been used for work in other metals, such as the thin sheets of bronze used for the well-known ‘Argo-Corinthian’ plaques which furnish the nearest analogies to the subjects of our monument.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1896
References
page 324 note 1 Middleton would trace the use of the diamond-point on the earliest gems and even proposes to regard the incised lines of the Macmillan lekythos (protocorinthian) as thus produced; but this seems doubtful.
page 325 note 1 It is instructive to compare the surface of the fish-god on the island-gem Brit. Mus. Cat. Pl. A, 82 with the similar figures on the Castle Ashby vase (A.V. 318), with their dotted bodies. On the rows of dots in Tyrrhenian vases see Hauser, , Jahrb. 1893 p. 102Google Scholar n. 21, who points to the same phenomenon in Boeotian work.
page 325 note 2 The mould also explains the phenomenon noticed by De Ridder, , Bull. Corr. Hell. 1895, p. 220Google Scholar, ‘les bordures sont estampées à l'aide de matrices dont la grandeur ne dépasse pas un champ.’
page 327 note 1 For a parallel see the Boeotian casket (geometrical) from Thebes, (Jahrb. 1888 p. 357Google Scholar).
page 329 note 1 Ajax Oileus and Cassandra (Olympia, 705).
page 333 note 1 The ‘proto-boeotian’ vase Arch. Anzeiger, 1895, p. 33, fig. 2 is also very instructive in its resemblance to ‘proto-corinthian’ work. See Furtwängler's remarks.
page 333 note 2 That the proto-corinthian vases owe their inspiration to Oriental metal-work has been shown by Mr.Smith, Cecil in J.H.S. 1890, p. 179Google Scholar, with the aid of an example obviously indebted to Phoenician models. But the form and decoration of the vases leave no doubt of the affinity of this style with the goldsmith's art.