Item description
- Object: Long-spouted gold Rhyton with horse protome.
- Date: Hellenistic, 3rd – 1th century BC
- Culture: Sarmatian
The rhyton is an elaborate object constructed from a very great number of sheet gold and wire components in a manner typical for the period. It is set with garnets and emerald-green glass, the former including reused pieces such as the Isis horns intaglio and a small ‘ivy leaf’, a typical late Hellenistic form. The larger gems and some of the smaller are set in typical Hellenistic ‘dog-tooth’ settings of sheet gold, as seen with both the gems shown here. The rhyton is characterised by the extensive use of filigree in what is termed ‘spiral-beaded’ wire, a wire form that first appears in the Mediterranean world in about the 7th century BC, but which only became widespread in the North Black Sea region after the 4th century BC. This wire type, which was made by rolling a circular-section wire under an edge, largely fell out of use during the Roman period.
The gold wire used on the rhyton was made by what is termed the striptwist process, the usual method of gold wire making prior to Medieval times. A narrow strip of gold sheet was twisted along its length and then rolled between two flat surfaces. This produced a good wire of even, circular cross section, but retaining, to a greater or lesser extent, the spiral seam lines - as seen clearly on a chain on the rhyton, shown right. This type of chain is called ‘loop-in-loop’ and was the usual form of gold chain in antiquity. Its benefit for the ancient jeweller was that it did not require soldering (and thus potential for fusing solid) during assembly.
In places, what is termed stress corrosion cracking can be observed – small, irregularly-edged cracks. This cracking is the result of corrosion and stress within the metal. Gold unless very debased is highly resistant to corrosion, but it can occur over very long periods. Such cracking is thus usually taken as a strong indication of great age.
Analyses were carried out on one of the pendant gold disks and on an area of the body of the rhyton where there was applied filigree work using portable x-ray fluorescence analysis. The results were as follows (each an average of 3):
| Gold | Silver | Copper | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold disk | 83.29% | 14.45% | 2.11% |
| Area with filigree | 77.96% | 19.43% | 2.62% |
No other elements were detected with certainty at levels resolvable by the equipment. This overall purity and the silver to copper ratio are consistent with an ancient origin. The higher silver and copper in the area of filigree might reflect the presence of solder, but not necessarily because there is also often some variation in composition between the different components of an object of this type. No elements were detected that would cast any doubt on the authenticity of the object.
The shape of the rhyton, the hanging chains and the style of the horse placed on the ending part of the terminal appears on the few objects of precious metalwork from the Hellenistic period which were found during the excavation on the North Black Sea lands occupied by the Sarmatian tribes. Only a number of such an objects were published by V. Mordvintseva and M. Treister in the book: "Works of Toreutics and Jewelry Art in the North Black Sea, 2nd century BC- 2nd century AD", Simferopol-Bonn, 2007 (see, for example, no. A 270.4; B38.1; B/1.10). Another fragments from the gold rhyton of a similar shape and with the similar horse head protome was published in the catalog: "Masterpieces of Ancient Eurasian Art", London-Bonn, 2008, no. 13, although our example appears to be made as a complete piece rather than gold mounts from a rhyton made from organic material.