[Jewelry making - Article 00114] - Re: [Orchid] Before rolling mills

[Len and Judy Bjorkman]

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>     some where in between the hammer and the rock some smart-alecky
>     Mesopotamian or Turkish guy developed a thing for swinging a mold
>     filled with molten metal around his head,... 

    Why do you call them "smart-alecky"?   In any case, to  my knowledge,
    there's no evidence for the use  of sling-casting in the Ancient Near
    East.  Stone molds were  in use, and artifacts show that lost-wax
    casting was known by the 4th millennium  BC. 

>     a tool which was first created for killing and war was turned into
>     a device for making art. 

I never tire of repeating that metal (including iron)  was first used for 
purposes of jewelry and art for thousands of years in the Ancient Near 
East before it was ever  used for weaponry.   It was too  valuable to  
waste on weaponry, until later in the first millennium BC.

>     casting mace heads (for more war tools) 

    Cast metal maceheads never show any signs of use and were actually
    weapons for display only. 

    Jack Ogden's book, Jewellery of the Ancient World (1982),  pp. 34-35,
    describes the making  of ancient sheet metal (especially gold);  on
    p. 48ff., he  discusses the forming of  wire by cutting strips of
    sheet metal and forming round wire from twisted and rolled strips
    (there are nice close-up photos of artifacts which show the use of
    these and many other techniques).  For more detail and references,
    see the chapter on Metalworking, in P.R.S. Moorey's Ancient
    Mesopotamian Materials and Industries (1994), a book which everyone
    interested in the history of ancient metalworking (not  to mention
    ancient stone,  bone, clay,  glass, ceramic,  etc.) should have in
    their library. 


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