4* Ancient Jewelry. 



carved punches in the manufacture of jewelry, for there are 

 abundant evidences of it in the necklaces and other ornaments 

 which are exhibited in the British Museum. One necklace of 

 shells and cornucopias, placed alternately, is especially remark- 

 able. It is of silver, and each kind of ornament is so exactly 

 similar, that they must necessarily have been struck off the 

 same punch. A bead necklace offers the same evidence ; and it 

 is not at all improbable that many of the aphes, cobras, scarabaei, 

 and other symbolical ornaments which we find embedded in 

 opaque glass, were struck from carved punches out of thin gold 

 p^te. The question then arises, how were these punches 

 made ? Were they also cast in moulds, say in bronze ? Or 

 were they forged, and worked up by file and graver into the 

 required form ? We have no evidence of the existence of a 

 file at this period ; and a file, besides that it must be of steel 

 to be of any service, even upon bronze, is a really artistic pro- 

 duction. There is no proof that steel was known at so remote 

 a date, and the probabilities are against such a supposition. 

 Cast iron is a modern invention ; and regarding the matter 

 from all sides, one is almost forced to the conclusion that these 

 punches were cast in bronze, and finished for use by such 

 cutting gravers or other tools as sharpened iron would furnish. 

 The suggestion that these exactly similar ornaments might 

 have been struck in dies offers many difficulties, for a die is an 

 implement of manufacture much more difficult of production 

 than a hand-punch. 



Then arises the question of soldering. These duplicate 

 pieces, struck with a punch, and made of an equal height by 

 being snipped round their edges with shears, and rubbed down 

 on a stone, must now be united by solder — not mere tin or 

 pewter, tut what is technically known as hard solder, i.e., a 

 metal only so far inferior by the addition of alloy to the metal 

 it is to unite, that it is fusible at a somewhat lower degree of 

 heat. But to solder in this way requires tools and appliances 

 of a more delicate nature than we have as yet had to deal with. 

 The preparation of solder itself, with its careful and minute 

 proportioning of alloy, and its no less careful fusion — its thin- 

 ning into plate, and its reduction by some means, by shears 

 or by file, into small particles for use — requires considerable 

 skill and indispensable tools. Then it is impossible to solder 

 without some species of flux, to prevent the oxidation of the 

 two surfaces to be united, during the process. What flux had 

 the Egyptians or the Assyrians ? It is a fact that in many 

 parts of the East Indies to this day the native jewelry, although 

 admirable in many points of execution, is not soldered together, 

 but dovetailed, in a manner of speaking, by a series of minute 

 " spitzens." The fineness of the gold employed admits of 



