Leadwork, Old and Ornamental and for the most part English

by W. R. Lethaby

In Egypt as well as in Babylonia it was the custom to make a deposit of several objects in the foundations, a tradition which we still follow to-day. At Daphnae Mr. Flinders Petrie found a set of little slabs of different stones and small plates of metal, gold, silver, copper, and lead, all engraved with the name of Psamtik. The lead tablet is here [figured].

Fig. 1.

The ornamental objects of lead to which the earliest date can be assigned are those found by Dr. Schliemann in his excavations at Mycenæ and Tiryns.[1]

The Greeks very largely used lead for many purposes. It is twice mentioned in the Iliad, and its familiar use as a building material is shown by Herodotus, who says that Queen Nitocris built a bridge over the river at Babylon, of stone bound together with lead and iron; and the story the Greek historian gives of the celebrated hanging gardens describes how they were raised on high terraces of arches covered with bitumen and sheets of lead.

Sufficient actual examples of Greek lead work are stored up in museums, masonry with dowels of lead, inscribed tablets, small toys and tokens, little vases for eye salve about as large as a thimble, boxes for unguents, and sling bullets. These last are often inscribed so that the warrior might know his work, often with flouts and jibes and jeers. One in the Lewes Museum has ΕΥΓΕΙ,—“Well done”; others have “Hit Hard,” &c.

In the museums of Athens are some small figures, a Dionysiac wreath of gilt lead leaves to be worn as a garland, a [lead quiver] for arrows about fifteen inches long, also plummets and market weights, with other objects. Mr. Cockerell found that parts of the early pediment sculptures at Ægina were of lead, and lead is inlaid in the volute of the early Ionic capital from the archaic temple of Ephesus now in the British Museum.

Fig. 2.

The plummets are interesting to us as builders’ implements; there are two or three dozen in the British Museum, about three inches high and one inch at the base tapering upwards: some are marked with the letter A on one side and on the [obverse] a little relief, a throne-seat with an owl. The owl was Athene’s own symbol, and appears on the coinage of Athens in a form from which this seems copied. The Acropolis was her throne. We will stretch our imaginations far enough to believe that the A stands for Athens and that these are the very implements used in setting the masonry of one of the corner stones of the world’s art—the Parthenon.