ON THE MANUFACTURE TECHNIQUE OF PSEUDO-TWISTED WISPS OF THE PECTORAL FROM THE TOVSTA MOHYLA BARROW

Abstract

The pectoral from the Tovsta Mohyla is an astonishing artifact which gathered different technical ways of Hellenic jewelry art. During this jewelry, which is composed of more than 160 details, a few dozens of different technical operations had been used. Till that time the less understood thing is a complex of ways that have been used by a craftsman during manufacturing of four pseudo-twisted hollow wisps, that framed figured pectoral friezes. None of the proposed reconstructions doesn’t give clear understanding on the most important elements of the technologic process of manufacture of the wisps, namely — technical operations used by an artisan for obtaining the verisimilar relief of a twisted wisp on hollow tubes. A definite clue for resolving this question can be given by construction of the torque from the Kul-Oba burial, a wisp of which consisted of a bronze twisted stem covered with a gold plate. Such construction could generate the idea of the manufacturing of hollow relief wisps with twisting imitation. To obtain them the craftsman twisted a wisp matrix from seven bronze wires. On that wisp a heat sealed tube rolled of thin gold sheet was placed. By the means of the basma technique — by pressure of wooden, bony or metal tools on a gold sheet, a twisted relief was squeezed at the tube. Then the tube was unscrewed from the matrix by turning around its radial axis towards a thinner tip of the matrix. The torque from the Solokha burial mount also has similar wisp construction. It stands for the fact of using identical technology during their manufacturing and of possible manufacturing of the pectoral and the torque by goldsmiths of the same workshop, or even by the same artisan.