06-20-2008, 01:11 PM
Christian,
You have a point. The evidence agrees with you. I refer to is to a fairly recent study which attests to the craftsmanship of the kranopois -helmet maker - named in Aristophanes Peace ( 1250ff) . ( See How The Greeks got ahead: technological aspects of manufacture of a corinthian type hoplite bronze helmet from Olympia.[url:2oam9ges]http://www.srs.ac.uk/scienceandheritage/presentations/Prag-etal-Olympia2006-final-v2.pdf[/url] In this study a Corinthian helmet was examined using a Synchrotron. The conclusions can be best summed up as:
"It was manufactured out of a single piece of bronze, probably on a rod-anvil, and like all body-armour it was made to measure."
but most importantly in support of your suggestion: "The object was more than likely cast as a ‘skull-cap’, then beaten and heated in an iterative cycle and dressed down to its final thickness and shape to fit the customer’s head."
The other evidence is mainly visual representations. The earliest is a Geometric period statue attributed to the late 8th or early 7th century. He seems to be using a narrow stake / rod anvil possibly with a rounded top.(See Five Bronzes Recently Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum
Gisela M. A. Richter American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1944), pp. 1-9)
The Thaliarchos Painter in the last decades of the 6th century represents a kranopois beating a helmet on a rod anvil. (Thaliarchos Painter, Paris Petit Palais 382). Also a 5th C ceramic example from tha Ashmolean Museum in Oxford seems to be filing or chasing the helmet - he has a block anvil with a flat top.
In 2005 I saw a beautiful stone armourers mold for a Boeotian helmet in the Kunsthistorische Museum in Wien and it had vine tendril pattern incisions in the stone so that after the helmet was finished on the mold the maker could decorate it by hammering silver into these impressions. A similar mold of limestone is also in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam.
Another article I have not read yet may also cover some of this issue is:
The Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia: Techniques of Metal Manufacture
William Rostoker and Elizabeth R. Gebhard Hesperia, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1980), pp. 347-363 Crumpled bronze sheet, broken helmet nasals and scrap bronze castings, risers and drippings infer a bronze foundry was present near the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia.
You have a point. The evidence agrees with you. I refer to is to a fairly recent study which attests to the craftsmanship of the kranopois -helmet maker - named in Aristophanes Peace ( 1250ff) . ( See How The Greeks got ahead: technological aspects of manufacture of a corinthian type hoplite bronze helmet from Olympia.[url:2oam9ges]http://www.srs.ac.uk/scienceandheritage/presentations/Prag-etal-Olympia2006-final-v2.pdf[/url] In this study a Corinthian helmet was examined using a Synchrotron. The conclusions can be best summed up as:
"It was manufactured out of a single piece of bronze, probably on a rod-anvil, and like all body-armour it was made to measure."
but most importantly in support of your suggestion: "The object was more than likely cast as a ‘skull-cap’, then beaten and heated in an iterative cycle and dressed down to its final thickness and shape to fit the customer’s head."
The other evidence is mainly visual representations. The earliest is a Geometric period statue attributed to the late 8th or early 7th century. He seems to be using a narrow stake / rod anvil possibly with a rounded top.(See Five Bronzes Recently Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum
Gisela M. A. Richter American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1944), pp. 1-9)
The Thaliarchos Painter in the last decades of the 6th century represents a kranopois beating a helmet on a rod anvil. (Thaliarchos Painter, Paris Petit Palais 382). Also a 5th C ceramic example from tha Ashmolean Museum in Oxford seems to be filing or chasing the helmet - he has a block anvil with a flat top.
In 2005 I saw a beautiful stone armourers mold for a Boeotian helmet in the Kunsthistorische Museum in Wien and it had vine tendril pattern incisions in the stone so that after the helmet was finished on the mold the maker could decorate it by hammering silver into these impressions. A similar mold of limestone is also in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam.
Another article I have not read yet may also cover some of this issue is:
The Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia: Techniques of Metal Manufacture
William Rostoker and Elizabeth R. Gebhard Hesperia, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1980), pp. 347-363 Crumpled bronze sheet, broken helmet nasals and scrap bronze castings, risers and drippings infer a bronze foundry was present near the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia.
Peter Raftos
