Dear Arch-metals,
This request to the East Asian Archaeology list should interest you.
Any ideas? I have copied the photograph to this address:
http://donwagner.dk/VNmold.jpg
Regards
Don Wagner
At 7:18 am -0700 18/5/05, marilynn larew wrote:
>Dear List Members,
>
>Would you please take a moment to look at the item in
>the attached file? It is one part of a 3 part mold
>for casting bronze crossbow bolts. As you can see, it
>has one face of the bolt carved on it. Three of these
>pieces were lashed together to form the mold, with the
>molten bronze being poured into the tang end. The
>material is a very hard stone, not local.
>
>Several hundred of these pieces were excavated this
>season near a casting furnace uncovered at a
>Vietnamese site near Hanoi in what is said to be a
>cultural layer dating to mid-3rd century BC and/or
>later. I did not see them in situ, since the dig was
>being closed, and all the artifacts had been
>catalogued and bagged before I got there.
>
>Have you ever seen anything like it?
>
>It seems to me to be an astonishingly labor-intensive
>way to cast the bolts, which any army would need in
>huge numbers. The mid-3rd century BC period is at the
>height of the Vietnamese bronze age, and their molds
>for making axes/adzes and other small items are quite
>conventional, although they are individual handcrafted
>molds rather molds made for mass production.
>
>All thoughts gratefully accepted.
>
>Cheers,
>Marilynn Larew
>
>Dr. Marilynn Larew
>20 New Park Road
>New Park, PA 17352
>USA
>phone/fax: 717-993-3557
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