Greek Jewellery
Jewellery-making Techniques
from Antiquity to Recent Times

Fig. 21 Gold ring with sard bezel engraved with a bird motif (British Museum). Fig. 22 Detail of a gold rosettes, showing the enamel decoration, early 4th century BC. (Athens, National Archaeological Museum, ST.305).

Casting was rarely used for making jewellery, principally for economic reasons since it requires a much larger amount of metal. Examples do of course exist, mainly decorative appendages or rings made from silver or copper and very rarely gold. Casting was done in clay moulds, which were open for simple objects and in two or more pieces for more complicated ones.
Intricate forms were cast by the lost-wax method (cire perdue). The model of the object was formed in wax on a core of porous, refractory material and its surface then covered with fine clay. During this process the ducts for casting the metal, as well as the ducts for the gases to escape, were made.
Drawings. 7,8 Reconstruction of the placement of decorative wires and granules on the marked-out design.

During casting the wax melted and the metal took its place. After cooling of the whole system the outer mould was removed and, if possible, the inner core too.

Fig. 23,24 Detail of chain with dolphin terminals, 2th century BC. One dolphin can be seen; alongside, enamel ivy leaves (Athens, National Archaeological Museum, XP.780).		 Then the flashes were removed and the surface of the object planished and polished until a11. signs of joining were obliterated.
Another technique used in antiquity was the coating-plating of base metals with noble metal. This was mainly done with gold and silver and was achieved in various ways.

Gilded jewellery usually had a core of silver or copper (figs 29,30) to which very fine gold leaf was applied, affixed to the surface by simple rolling its edges or with the help of some adhesive. Another method, which required a smaller quantity of gold, was gilding with mercury. Gold and mercury form a semi-fluid amalgam with which the object was covered. Because mercury has a much lower boiling point than gold it evaporated on heating, leaving a fine film of gold on the surface of the object. Silvered jewellery usually had a copper core.. Because the melting point of silver is much lower than that of copper, objects could be silvered by dipping them in molten silver. The method of coating with a mercury amalgam, described above, was also applied.
Fig. 25 Characteristic example of a synthesis of all the decorative techniques.
This ornament comprises a disc with repousse decoration of a Nereid upon a hippocamp.
Below the disc hang chains forming a complex festoon.
On the joins of the chains are rosettes, while between them hang pendants of two different kinds, one kind decorated in repousse and granulation, and the other in filigree and enamel (Hermitage).

Fig. 26 Gold earring with female figure.
Though the ornament is small it incorporates all the decorative techniques.

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