I have a palstave from a large hoard found near Tours, in which the lateral displacement of the mould is as much as a quarter of an inch, so that there is what geologists might term a “fault” in the casting. The metal which has been in contact with what was the face of the mould is smooth, and appears to have been cast against clay. A considerable variety of patterns was in use by the founder to whom this hoard belonged, and they appear to have been of metal and not of wood, some of the palstaves having been apparently cast from tools already shortened by wear.
That castings were occasionally made even from tools already mounted in their handles is proved by the Swiss hatchet, Fig. 185.
Some portions of moulds formed of burnt clay were found with broken palstaves, socketed celts, gouges, knives, spear-heads, daggers, swords, lumps of metal, runners, &c., at Questembert, Brittany, and are in the museum at Vannes.
Part of a mould for spear-heads formed of burnt clay was found in the Lac du Bourget;[1728] but the most interesting discoveries are those which have been made by Dr. V. Gross at the station of Mœrigen,[1729] on the Lake of Bienne. He there found a considerable amount of the plant of an ancient bronze-founder, all of whose moulds, however, were either in stone or burnt clay, and not formed of metal. The stone moulds appear to have been principally used for the plainer articles, such as knives, sickles, pins, &c., while for articles with irregular surfaces, or requiring cores, clay was preferred. Of clay moulds Dr. Gross recognises two types: one formed in a single piece, which could serve but once, and which was broken in extracting the casting; and the other, which was composed of two or more pieces, and which could be used over and over again. Of the first kind there were two examples—one for a socketed chisel and the other for a socketed knife. The form of the mould for a chisel is nearly cylindrical, with a funnel-shaped opening at one end, at the bottom of which are two holes leading into the interior of the mould. The clay between these two holes forms part of a conical core. Such a mould would give the idea of its having been formed on a model of wax on the system known as that of cire perdue; but this appears not to have been really the case, for on examination the mould itself appears to have been originally formed of two halves, or valves, formed of fine clay, which had been well burnt, and these when put together had been surrounded by an external envelope of coarse clay, which held them and the core they enclosed in their proper position. The core itself seems to have been T-shaped, the ends of the transverse line being triangular and fitting into corresponding recesses in the valves of the mould.
The best-preserved mould of the second kind was one for a socketed hammer, which was also provided with a core of the same kind. It seems to me, however, that the distinction drawn by Dr. Gross between the two classes of moulds does not really exist, as by enveloping such a mould as that for the hammer in a mass of clay it would be transferred from the second class to the first.
Clay moulds for socketed-celts have been found in Hungary.[1730]
In some Scandinavian examples[1731] of what appear to have been ceremonial axes there is merely a thin coating of bronze cast over a clay core, but no such specimens have as yet been found in Britain. That bronze so thin could have been cast shows wonderful skill in the founder.
Fig. 534.—Stogursey. ½ —Fig. 535.—Stogursey. ½ —Fig. 536.—Stogursey. ½