The Bronze Fragments of the Acropolis: II

Abstract

To any student of early Greek bronze ornament the works of Dr. Furtwaengler on the Olympian bronzes must be well known, and as he has dealt at length with the development of patterns on bronzes, and as every day fresh evidence seems to be coming up which serves to confirm his views, there is no necessity for me here to do anything more than recount shortly the general characteristics and nature of this class of bronzes from the Acropolis. These, like those of Olympia, may be divided into two main classes according as they belong to the geometric or the oriental style; while a cross distinction may also be drawn between engraved or stamped ornament and relief. Originally however these two distinctions seem to have been one and the same, the geometric corresponding to the engraved or stamped technique, and the oriental generally to the relief; but later we find each of these forms of ornament translated into the other technique. The original distinction however is due to two main causes, the quality of the bronze used in the two factories and the nature of the objects principally produced in them. The bronze of geometric ornament is much harder and more brittle than that of oriental, which is soft but very tough: to work geometric bronze into repoussé relief would be almost impossible, while the finer quality of the oriental is peculiarly suitable to such a technique. Thus it is often possible simply from the feel of a bronze fragment to decide which factory it came from.