Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 99. (Budapest, 2003)
DÁGI, MARIANNA: 'Tinkers' and 'Patchers': Some Notes on the Ancient Repairs of Greek Vases
traces of repair on the vases, 36 but lead and bronze were in common use as repairing material. 37 In S. Pfisterer-Haas' opinion, the custom of repair of broken vases was not common in Greece, and mainly lead was used there, as in Southern Italy, but in Etruria bronze was in fashion. 38 Due to the lack of any systematic analysis of repaired vases, it is not possible to draw any conclusion about any spatial and temporal pattern of repairing materials. Practical reasons could have played a part in the use of metals for mending broken vases. One of these reasons is which part of the broken vase the repairing metal was used for. The examples mentioned by the scholars and my observations have shown that bronze was preferred to fix broken feet, perhaps because bronze is harder than lead and thus the attachment was stronger. This could be naturally strengthened by some lead. 39 Both lead and bronze were used for handles and body repair. Another aspect of this problem is the accessibility and price of the particular repairing metal. Lead was mined continuously from the Bronze Age onwards in Greece. A relatively large amount of Early Bronze Age lead objects was found on the Cyclades and in Athens, including lead staples for pottery repair, and also repaired pottery with lead. The lead used for these finds came from the Laurion mines and Syphnos. 40 A similar case can be asThe three examples known to me are not of Greek provenance and each is from burial. Two are from a Celtic, and one from an Etruscan tomb. On the two Attic kylikes from the Celtic tumulus at Kleinaspergle the ancient repairs were covered with punched golden sheets. (One is a blackpainted, the other a red-figure cup, attributed to the Amphitrite Painter: Stuttgart, Württembergisches Landesmuseum, inv. no. KAS 114 and KAS 113. For details, see Schaaff, U., in Das Kleinaspergle. Studien zu einem Fürstengrabhügel der frühen Latenezeit bei Stuttgart (ed. Kimmig, W.), Stuttgart 1988, 191-195.) The Siana cup ofthetombno. 17 in the Crocefisso del Tufo necropolis, near Orvieto, had a gold sheet with a Gorgon-head covering the repair of the foot. The Gorgonhead became visible at each drink. See Bizzarri 1962, 87, nos. 311 and 313, fig. 23/b and 28, pi. V/c. In the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities the metal used for repair has remained only in two cases. A Capuan bell-krater dated to the third quarter of the 4 th century BC and the Megarian bowl dated to the 2 nd or 1 st century BC from the Monogram workshop in Ephesus have retained the remains of corroded lead in the drill holes: see nos. 14 and 16. See Pfisterer-Haas 2002, 55. See n. 11, For lead mines, see Forbes, R.J., Studies in Ancient Technology VIII, Leiden 1964, 206-226. Staples and repaired pottery are reported from Syros, Keos and Naxos. The Cycladic idols repaired in the same way as the pottery can be dated to the Early Bronze Age. In Athens a number of lead objects and vessels mended with lead were excavated from a Mycenaean spring on the north slope of the Acropolis. The mines of Laurion had already been exploited from the Early Bronze Age, and this can easily lead to the assumption that lead was plentiful in Athens at that time. We have evidence for lead mining in Syphnos in the same period (early Cycladic I and II phases). The lead isotope analysis of N.H. Gale and Z.A. Stos-Gale has shown that the lead and the silver of the period - including the staples used for mending - were made of the metal mined either on Syphnos or in the Laurion mines. The continuous exploitation of the Laurion mines provided a lead supply for the following periods; thus the pottery menders were provided with the necessary lead for their work. See Broneer, O., Hesperia 8 (1939) 317-433, especially 401 and 416; Gale - Stos-Gale, op.cit. (n. 6) 169-224; Wilson, D.E., Keos IX, Ayia Irini: Periods I-III, The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Settlements, Part I: The Pottery and Small Finds, Mainz 1999, 111, no. II I145; 117, no. III-224; 144-146; 236. For the 5 th and 4 th centuries, see Amyx, D.A., Hesperia 27 (1958) 281.
