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Black bronze and the ‘Corinthian alloy’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. M. Jacobson and
M. P. Weitzman
D. M. Jacobson
Affiliation:
GEC-Marconi Ltd, Borehamwood
M. P. Weitzman
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

Two recent studies by A. R. Giumlia-Mair and P. T. Craddock have been devoted to a form of bronze having a blackish tint.1, 2 The authors there describe examples ancient and modern, from as far apart as Mycenean Greece, Egypt, Rome, China and Japan. In Japan such bronze is prominently represented in decorative art and known as Shakudo.

Information

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995, pp. 580 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Giumlia-Mair, A. R. and Craddock, P. T., ‘Corinthium Aes. Das schwartze Gold der Alchimisten’, Antike Welt 24:5 (1993), 1–62Google Scholar.

2 Craddock, P. and Giumlia-Mair, A., ‘Hśmn-Km, Corinthian bronze, shakudo: black-patinated bronze in the ancient world’, in La Niece, S. and Craddock, P.. (eds.), Metal Plating and Patination: Cultural, Technical and Historical Developments (Oxford, 1993), pp. 102–127Google Scholar.

3 Craddock, P. T., ‘Corinthian Bronze: Rome's Purple Sheen Gold’, MASCAJ 2:2 (1982), 40–41Google Scholar; id., ‘Gold in Antique Copper Alloys’, Gold Bulletin 15 (1982), 69–72.

4 Jacobson, D. M. and Weitzman, M. P., ‘What was Corinthian Bronze?’ AJA 96 (1992), 237–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 English translation by Rackham, H., in Pliny, Natural History, vol. ix (Loeb edition: Cambridge, MA and London, 1952), p. 133Google Scholar.

6 See p. 111 in the article cited in n. 2.

7 Apart from these references to continuous substances, Pliny also uses mixtura of smells (17.239), light and colour (11.148; 35.30, 46; 37.80), or simply of a list of varied items (2.241). At 8.213 he uses mixtura of animal breeding, and at 16.46 he writes of trees that are closely inter-related: tanta natalium mixtura est, while at 17.187 he warns against the planting of different vines in close proximity as mixtura generum. Pliny also uses mixtura meteorologically, of a blend of heat and moisture (2.190); in the same way the colours of the rainbow are due to the mixtura of clouds, fire and air (2.150). None of these instances, of course, in any way support the view that mixtura could indicate a combination of one metal (Corinthian bronze) juxtaposed with others (gold and silver) in which each retains its characteristic properties including colour.

8 Mishnah, Middot 2.3Google Scholar; Tos, . Yoma 2.4Google Scholar; TB Yoma 38a. See Jacobson, and Weitzman, , op. tit., pp. 240–41Google Scholar.

9 Dirksen, P. B., ‘The Old Testament Peshitta’, in Mulder, M. J. (ed.), Mikra. Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible (Assen. 1988), pp. 255–97, esp. pp. 259, 295Google Scholar.

10 This is MS. Mm 6.29. See Wright, W., A Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1901), pp. 1036–7Google Scholar. For a translation of this passage into French, see Berthelot, P. and Duval, R., La chimie au moyen âge. Tome II: l'alchimie syriacque (Paris, 1893), p. 230Google Scholar.

11 Engels, D., Roman Corinth: An Alternative Model for the Classical City (Chicago, 1990), pp. 206–7Google Scholar, with n. 66; Jacobson, and Weitzman, , op. cit., p. 244Google Scholar with n. 65.

12 Berthelot, and Duval, , op. cit., p. 223Google Scholar.

13 The French translation of the whole passage is in other respects broadly reliable, though the Syriac form w-mthblyn which puzzled Berthelot and Duval (p. 222, n. 3) seems a scribal error for w-mthmyn ‘and are heated’.

14 Giumlia-Mair and Craddock (see n. 1), p. 36 (illustration no. 18).

15 Oguchi, H., ‘Japanese Shakudo: Its History, Properties and Production from Gold-containing Alloy’, Gold Bulletin 16 (1983) 125–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murakami, R., Niiyama, S. and Kitada, M., ‘The Characterization of Black Surface of Shakudo’, Kobunkazai no Kagaku 33 (1988) 24–32Google Scholar (Japanese).

16 Lechtman, H., ‘Tradition and Styles in Central Andean Metalworking’, in Maddin, R. (ed.), The Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys: Papers from the Second International Conference on the Beginnings of the Use of Metals and Alloys, Zhengzhou, China, 21–26 October, 1986 (Cambridge, MA, 1988) pp. 344–78, esp. 373Google Scholar.