Bronze- and Ironworking in the Area of the Athenian Agora

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. (PLATES 77-98) p)URING the course of the excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies in the region of the Athenian Agora, remains of foundries and smithies ranging in date from the 6th century B.C. to the 6th century after Christ were discovered in over twenty different locations,' each of which is given a letter of the alphabet on the site plan (P1. 77) and in the Catalogue of Establishments below. Twelve of these appear to be actual workshops, for they have hearths or 1 I am grateful to Homer A. Thompson for permission to study the Agora foundry remains and for his advice and encouragement; to Sara A. Immerwahr, who advised me in the preparation of a dissertation for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in which much of the following material was included; to James R. McCredie for help in all phases of my studies in Athens; and to the American School of Classical Studies for an Edward Capps Fellowship (1975/1976) which enabled me to prepare this publication. I am also grateful to T. Leslie Shear, Jr. for permission to re-excavate three Agora foundries in the summer of 1973; to Eugene Vanderpool, Jr. for his photographs of the material; to William Bell Dinsmoor, Jr. for the plans reproduced in Figures 3, 6, 7; to Alison Frantz for permission to include here four photographs which she took in the foundry of thie Fratelli Nicci in Rome, Plate 97; and to Abigail Camp for her drawings, Plates 93-95.There is little comparative material available in this field, and I must be held responsible both for the identification of objects and for the interpretation of their use. Many more items were studied and inventoried than could reasonably be included in this catalogue, and it is from the whole body of the material that my conclusions are drawn.Substantial remains of large-scale bronze-casting workshops of various periods have also been excavated in the following locations in Greece. South slope of the Athenian Akropolis: S. Koumanoudes, BRONZE AND IRONWORKING IN THE ATHENIAN AGORA 341 casting pits, as well as debris such as broken molds, vitrified bricks from furnaces, scraps of waste metal, and slag. The other remains are either dumps situated in shallow holes and abandoned wells or cisterns, or simply isolated finds,2 often scattered, and frequently from the area around the Hephaisteion.During the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods, metalworking establishments were distributed along the west side of the Agora and in the industrial region just outsi...

The Belgammel Ram, a Hellenistic-Roman BronzeProembolionFound off the Coast of Libya: test analysis of function, date and metallurgy, with a digital reference archive

“…There is no evidence from the ancient world for the use of sand as a casting material for bronze. Mattusch (: 342, n.8), in discussing the evidence for bronze casting at the Athenian Agora, states: ‘All of the foundry remains which I have examined indicate that throughout antiquity only the lost‐wax ( cire perdue ) method of casting, in its direct or indirect form, was used to produce both large and small bronzes’. There is abundant evidence for the use of ceramic moulds from the ancient world (for example, Mattusch, ; Riha and Stern, ; Rabeisen, ; Bayley and Budd, ; Chardron‐Picault and Pernot, ) and there is enough evidence to show that ceramic continued to be the main moulding material up to the 18th century AD.…”

Des ateliers de bronziers romains à Berytus (iie-iiie s. apr. J.-C.) : les vestiges du site SFI654 (Beyrouth, Liban)

“…Celles-ci, situées au fond des fosses, ont été identiiées comme des bases de moules, notamment du fait de la nature du matériau, des traces de chaufe typiques, et de quelques iniltrations de métal en alliage à base de cuivre. Cette identiication est aussi fondée sur leur analogie avec des vestiges retrouvés dans des fosses de coulée en France (homas et al, 2012 et 2015) et en Grèce (Mattusch, 1977).…”

“…Les ateliers de production de grands bronzes de la période romaine sont rares, mal conservés et peu étudiés. Dans la partie européenne de l'Empire romain, des vestiges comme des fosses de coulée, des fragments de moules et, plus rarement, de creusets ont été retrouvés en France (Adamski et al, 2011 ;Grandieux, 2005 ;Guyard, 2003 ;homas et al, 2012 ;homas et al, 2015), en Suisse (Furger, 1998 ;Morel et al, 2001), en Grèce (Mattusch, 1977 ;Zimmer, 1990) alors qu'au Proche Orient des restes comparables ont seulement été reconnus à Gerasa en Jordanie (Khalil et al, 2013). Les découvertes réalisées dans le centre de Beyrouth ofrent donc une occasion inédite pour mieux documenter les pratiques de fonderie de grands bronzes dans l'Empire romain et plus particulièrement en Orient.…”

The casting core composition and provenance of the Goljamata Kosmatka (Bulgaria) bronze head

“…In Attica, close to Athens and at Aegina, important bronze foundries were discovered (Mattusch, 1977(Mattusch, , 1979(Mattusch, , 1988. A 1:100,000 map (Papadeas, 2005a) reports the occurrence of Mesozoic marbles and carbonates and outcrops of Devonian ''gneisses of muscovitic-amphibolitic or other composition'' near Mount Pentelico (north of Athens).…”