Engraved gems, signets, talismans and ornamental intaglios : ancient and modern
Osborne, Duffield, 1858-1917. no 97002166
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PANGBORN AND WILLIAM GEDNEY BEATTY TO WHOSE AID AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS BOOK OWES MUCH / PREFACE During the Eighteenth Century, the so-called “Century of the Dilettanti”, and down to the fifth decade of the nineteenth, no branch of the art humanities occupied so prominent a place as did the study and appreciation of the engraved gems of clas- sic times. In their numbers, in the perfection of their preserva- tion, and in their intimate relations to the personal lives of the old Greeks and Romans, they appealed alike to the student of archaeology and to the lover of antiquity for its own sake ; while the collector, following fast in the tracks of such leadership, soon made them the most fashionable of his desiderata. Every man who had any pretension to culture and taste posed as a con- noisseur ; kings and queens felt themselves lacking in their duty to archaeology and art unless they formed and fostered national cabinets. Even in ancient Rome there were collectors. Scaurus, the stepson of Sulla, is the first of whom we find record. Later, Mithridates, the great king of Pontus, had a collection which his conqueror, Pompey, seized and consecrated in the Capitol. Julius Caesar made no fewer than six, all of which he gave to the temple of Venus Genetrix, and Marcellus, the son of Octavia, presented one to the temple of the Palatine Apollo. With the revival of taste and learning that followed the Middle Ages, the interest in engraved gems sprang up again. It found favor with the humanist popes and the princes of the house of Medici. Lorenzo the Magnificent was a most discriminating collector not only of the antique but also of the best work of his own time for which end he sought to bring the best artists to Florence. The LAVR. MED inscribed on many stones indicate that they once belonged to this famous amateur. Michael Angelo went into ecstasies over the Minerva head obtained by Cellini in 1524 from some workmen in a vineyard. Urbane Italian despots and rude Hapsburg emperors, Charles IX, Henry IV, and Louis XIV of v vi PREFACE France gave their enthusiastic patronage; Catherine II founded the famous Russian collection; Frederick the Great supported and enriched the cabinet begun by the “Great Elector” ; Joseph- ine was an eager if not very intelligent seeker; but perhaps the best evidence of the universality of the craze is that even poor, bucolic George III felt called upon to join the ranks of an army of whose aims he knew little, and with whose enthusiasm he could have but the most perfunctory sympathy. The words of Goethe when he writes of Hemsterhuis and his collection of gems, owned later by the Princess Galitzin, are full of weight : “With a peculiarly acute delicacy of feeling this estimable man was led unweariedly to strive after the intellectual and moral as well as the sensuous and sesthetical. If we are to be imbued with the former we ought constantly to be surrounded by the latter. To a private person, whose movements are confined within a narrow sphere and who even when travelling finds it difficult to dispense with an habitual enjoyment of art, a collec- tion of engraved gems is a great boon. He is everywhere ac- companied by what gives him the greatest enjoyment and is a valuable means of instruction without being cumbersome, and he can continually enjoy a very precious possession.” Speaking further of the Galitzin cabinet, Goethe says: “It could not be denied that imitations of larger and more valuable ancient works of art which would otherwise have been lost to us forever were preserved, like jewels, in this narrow compass. The brawniest Hercules, crowned with ivy, could not deny his colos- sal origin. During the years that have passed between then and now, knowledge that there are such things as antique intaglios and knowledge of what they are, well-nigh died in the public mind. Only the student, the archaeologist, and the lover whose faith nothing could shake, remained, and to these fell, and still falls, the harvest to be reaped in a field where the grain is rich and the reapers are few. The forgers soon dropped their now un- profitable craft and died; no new ones took their places; the very art of gem-cutting was left to a workman here and there whose ability was practically limited to producing a mediocre head or crude figure, a monogram or a coat of arms. Our own St. Gaudens, when a very young man, engraved a few gems, but i cannot be said that he ever attained any eminence in the art. Meanwhile the ploughed ground, the excavations, and the tombs continued to yield their hidden store, and the knowledge PREFACE • • • VIII of the student advanced, until he could smile at the efforts that had deceived men of the preceding generation. He gathered and still gathers, for a mere song, objects than which none is more interesting and fascinating. In these days we seek for Chinese porcelains, for Japanese prints, for Tanagra figurines, for Sheffield plate, pewter, copper, textiles, sword-guards and old furniture — an endless list, and the forger forges merrily on, his skill and his plenteousness governed, as ever, by the number of possible dupes and the prices to be had for his wares. It will be a sad day for the admirer of ancient gems, when, in the rolling world of fashion, the collect- ing tide sets again in their direction, as it inevitably will. Time must elapse, however, before an indiscriminate de- mand can rear a new generation of forgers clever enough to meet the knowledge and experience we now have. The hare has slept long and the tortoise has won a lead that his swift-footed rival cannot soon overcome. Meanwhile, happy is he whose interest and tastes, formed on sane lines and with a just ap- preciation of relative values, are not subject to the mandates of fashion. To him, be he rich or poor, is the possibility of the most satisfactory and best attainment of his heart’s desire. It is for such that this book is written. The works of Dr. Charles W. King are out of print and rarely attainable. Then, too, while there is much of value in their pages, there are also many errors that the thirty years that have passed since he wrote have corrected; a mass of new knowledge that has been gained. The few other books in English on the subject are more or less open to the same criticism, are limited in scope, or are worthless; while the monumental work of Dr. Adolf Furtwangler, published at two hundred and sixty marks, has never been translated from the German, and, in its devotion to what may be called the more “important” art side of the subject, it ignores almost entirely the great mass of cruder specimens among which the individual gem-lover must look for most of his finds and for his illumination, and which I believe to be not less interesting, from many stand- points, than the best productions of this classic art. PREFACE ix In the matter of ancient proper names one is always beset by the dilemma whether to follow the ancient nomen- clature and spelling at the cost of seeming pedantic or whether to adopt frankly the Latinized modern. In a work like this the former seems imperative, but I have taken the liberty of a measure of eclecticism in a few such cases as centaur for kentauros, cyclops for kuklopes and caduceus for kerukeion. I have also taken the liberty of dropping the final n in names like Plouton, Apollon and Platon. The long marks over the e and o denote, as usual, the Greek eta and omega. When, however, I come to consider Roman gems, I have accepted the Latinized Greek names. Both forms will thus generally be found, each in the connection in which it may be most useful to the student of inscriptions. In the cases of some of the most familiar geographical names, like Bceotia, for instance, where the Greek spelling would affect the pronunciation, I have let the ce stand for the Greek oi — also Cyprus for Kupros etc. In closing my preface I must acknowledge my indebted- ness, first, to the works of Messrs. Arthur J. Evans and D. G. Hogarth, whose discoveries in Crete have opened a new field and carried the knowledge of European gem-engraving back many centuries. Whoever would write today must rely on their investigations in the province of Cretan glyptics. On Dr. Furtwangler I shall draw largely in the matter of stones, shapes and subjects characteristic of, more especially, the earlier periods. His equipment and his opportunities for examination of a great number of examples make the results of his observations in these lines invaluable to one who would present a full view of the subject, and the obligation cannot be too frankly or too broadly admitted. When it comes to the deductions and theoretical conclusions so dear to the German scientist, I must take the liberty of a frequent softening of his generalizations and of occasional divergence. Dr. King’s Gnostics and Their Remains furnishes me with many of the inscriptions on Gnostic gems which I shall find necessary to quote, and his Antique Gems and Rings, Handbook of Engraved Gems and Early Christian Numismatics, however full of X PREFACE errors, have all been valuable sources of information. On the subject of Mediaeval gems I have taken advantage of the in- vestigations of M. Lecoy de la Marche and M. Germain Demay and, to a less degree, of the work on seals of Mr. W. de G. Birch. I wish further to make acknowledgment to Mr. Harry L. Pangborn for many suggestions, especially in the field of Mediaeval glyptics, as well as for invaluable aid in other directions ; also to Mr. Lacey D. Caskey of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for his painstaking courtesy in connection with the gems in that institution which I have used for illustration. To the Boston Museum, also, and to the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford I am indebted for casts of gems in those collections presented to me for photographing, and to the following private collectors for the loan of gems to make casts for the same purpose, viz., Mr. W. Gedney Beatty, Prof. George N. Olcott, Prof. Herschel Parker, Mr. Harry L. Pangborn, Mrs. Henry Draper, Mr. Thomas E. H. Curtis and Mr. Nestor Sanborn. CONTENTS PAGE Preface v Introduction 1 Interest in Antiquity, 3; Forgeries, 8; Materials of Ancient Gems, 11; Size of Ancient Gems, 11; Shapes of Ancient Gems, 12; Surface Appearance of Ancient Gems, 12; Workmanship of Ancient Gems, 14; Designs on Ancient Gems, 15; Signatures on Ancient Gems, 18; Inscriptions on Ancient Gems, 19. PART I HISTORY OF GEM ENGRAVING— CHARACTERISTICS AND DEVELOPMENTS OF EACH PERIOD CHAPTER I Early Work.— Minoan and Mycenaean Gems — The Greek Middle Ages. — Melian or Island Stones.— From 3000 (?) to 600 b.c. ... 23 Minoan Gems, -23; Mycenaean Gems, 29; Greek Middle Ages, 32; Melian Stones, 34. CHAPTER II Archaic Greek Gems Greek Scarabs for the Etruscan Market, 44; Phoenician and Cartha- ginian Scarabs, 45. CHAPTER III The Gems of the Best Period (480-400 b. c.) and of the Period of the Finished Styles (400-300 b. c.) .... Greek-Persian Gems, 48; Greek Gems, 50. Etruscan Scarabs CHAPTER IV 63 CHAPTER V Gems of the Hellenistic Period xi Xll CONTENTS CHAPTER VI PAGE Middle Italian Gems of the Roman Republic 84 Under Etruscan Influence, 85; Under Hellenistic Influence, 96; Period of Combining Influences, 101. CHAPTER VII Gr^co-Roman Gems of the Early Empire 106 CHAPTER VIII Gems of the Later Empire. — Christian Gems. — Mithraic and Gnostic Talismans 12a Christian Subjects, 127; Mithraic Gems, 131; Gnostic Gems, 134. CHAPTER IX Byzantine, Sassanian and Moslem Gems 148 Byzantine Gems, 148; Sassanian Gems, 148; Later Mohammedan Gems, 153; Rabbinical Gems, 154. CHAPTER X Gems in Mediaeval Europe.— Their Use and Manufacture . . . 155 CHAPTER XI Gems of the Renaissance 170 Gem Engravers of the Fifteenth Century, 174 ; Gem Engravers of the Sixteenth Century, 174 ; Gem Engravers of the Seventeenth Cen- tury, 178. CHAPTER XII Gems of Modern Times 181 Gem Engravers of the Eighteenth Century, 183 ; Gem Engravers of the Nineteenth Century, 189 ; Gem Engraving To-day, 193. PART II THE DEITIES AND OTHER PERSONAGES COMMON OR LIABLE TO BE FOUND ON ENGRAVED GEMS, WITH THEIR APPEARANCE, ATTRIBUTES, ETC. CHAPTER I The Greater Gods and Their Associates 199 CONTENTS xm CHAPTER II PAG ID Lesser and Later Deities with Their Attributes 230 CHAPTER III Heroes and Their Attributes 253 PART III TECHNIQUE— MATERIALS— HISTORICAL AND MYTHOLOGICAL SIGNETS CHAPTER I Tools and Technical Methods of Gem Engraving .... 271 CHAPTER II Stones Used for Ancient Intaglios 277 CHAPTER III Historical and Mythological Signets 286 Description and Explanation of Plates 297 Alphabetical List of Attributes, Aspects, and Sacred or Sacrificial Animals, Trees, and Flowers 393 Index 399 Plates. At end of book ENGRAVED GEMS INTRODUCTION From the earliest times two ideas have advanced side by side in the desire of mankind for precious and semi-precious stones. Most of these are beautiful in themselves. Hence they have been sought as ornaments. Many of them, from their rarity, their unusual colors, and their hardness, have been looked upon as amulets that can avert evil or talismans that can bring good fortune. Later, when advancing knowledge of the arts enabled the workman to fashion the shapes and en- grave the surface of the stones, both ideas received a new impetus. It was obvious that the ornamental element could be enhanced by the skill of the artist and, also, that the subject engraved, were it the figure or attribute of some god, a written charm or a magic symbol, might induce or enhance the luck- bringing quality, above all things to be desired. Later, yet a third element was added. With the first existence of the institution of personal property and the beginnings of business, social and political relations, arose the need to each man of a device which, by its impression on clay or some other soft and hardening substance, would identify his possessions, his agreements and his com- munications. Here again the engraved surfaces of precious or semi-precious stones offered the best means to the end. Their hardness made them durable and difficult to imitate, their small size made them easy to carry, and the possible com- bination of ornament, amulet and signet was, naturally, con- venient and attractive. Probably the earliest development of the signet idea was among the Sumerians of Chaldaea or the Egyptians and is dated rather speculatively about 5000 B. C. The form adopted was the cylinder, first of soft and, later, of hard stone, pierced 2 INTRODUCTION. through its length so that it could be suspended by a cord from wrist or neck. It would seem that the shape may have had its origin in an earlier use of bits of reed the peculiar lines of whose surfaces could be rolled on moist clay for purposes of identification and, like the serrated margins of indenture deeds, would be next to impossible to counterfeit. Dr. Stewart Culin first drew attention to the arrow shaft, with its owner’s mark, as a most plausible source of the idea, a suggestion which other writers have adopted, generally without credit to its originator. The use of the cylinder spread over western Asia and Egypt, where Menes, the first king of the upper and lower countries, had such a signet. At a later time the Asiatic favored a conical seal, also pierced and suspended, but the study of these forms, together with the mythology and writ- ings pictured on them, is a separate branch of the subject calling for the Oriental specialist, and the work of Dr. William Hayes Ward fills the field most satisfactorily. In Egypt a national form developed. The shape of the Egyptian beetle or scarab began to prevail from the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty and was soon universally adopted from religious motives. It was the emblem of the Sun, the presiding god; it was the emblem of eternity and of strength, but Egyptian work in intaglio was pretty much confined to hieroglyphics, symbols and decorative designs and, hence, never rose to high artistic excellence. Here again is a field for the specialist in the language and archaeology, and the scarab form comes into our province only in so far as its use spread into the Phoenician colonies, Greece, and Etruria, where the intaglio took upon itself the character and quality of Hellenic art. As a rule we have to do with stones cut to be set in rings of gold, silver, bronze, iron and, rarely, even lead. A word may be added as to cameos, a later development. In most works on the subject of engraved gems, these are treated at considerable length ; but such miniature relief sculpture had no further purpose than ornamentation, except so far as this included portraiture, and they lack almost entire- INTEREST IN ANTIQUITY 3 lj the peculiar interest that the intaglio presents. Incident- ally, the number of ancient cameos is comparatively small. Most of the specimens we see are Renaissance or modern, since the forgers, looking for ready remuneration and to the more showy manifestations of their craft, found in the cameo a much more profitable field for their efforts and one that required less study, knowledge and caution than did the intaglio with its intimate associations with the life and thought of antiquity, with the very soul of the classic world. The limits, then, of this work, for I conceive the value of such a treatise is largely a matter of limitations, should be set by the phrase “Classic and Modern Intaglios.” In these we shall find all the art, all the mystical elements, and all the peculiar personal associations which the use of signets involved. INTEREST IN ANTIQUITY The interest in what we call “antiquities” may be broad- ly classified under three heads. First, that of the student: the scientific archaeologist, who looks upon such objects as a means of knowledge. To him the study of Greek, Roman and Etruscan intaglios affords many sources of information. In the subjects pictured, from, let us say speculatively, 3000 B. C., may be traced accurately the trend of thought of each period and nation. We know the things that interested the Greek of the Mycenaean Age and the Roman of the Lower Empire. Perhaps it was art pure and simple, perhaps religion, as voiced in sacerdotal subjects and the figures of gods and their attributes, grading down to the grosser superstitions evidenced by many talismans and amulets. Poetic taste was gratified by scenes from the Homeric and other legends. The idea of personal subservience and flattery shows itself in the many instances where the subject wore his monarch’s portrait, the client his patron’s, while simpler and more material preferences produced numer- ous genre pictures of everyday life. The adherent of the green or the blue wore his favorite horse or quadriga, the hunter 4 INTRODUCTION or the tradesman, some representation of his play or work, and so through every human motive and taste that fashion or personality has born and nourished. It is in this connection that we find much of the interest and value of the great mass of the poorer — even of the con- temptible— work from an art standpoint: the gems that we commonly run across and which Professor Furtwiingler and other writers largely ignore. Again, in the work itself it is easy to follow the ebb and flow of civilization as evidenced by the merit of the art and the skill of the craftsman, and here, too, it seems to me a great mistake to scorn the commonplace. Each gem has its lesson to teach, whether it be from the hand of Dexamenos or from that of some wretched bungler in the Diocletian Forum. In connection with the art side of the subject there is also to be considered the fact that famous statues and paintings were often reproduced on these gems. The statue is mutilated or destroyed, the painting has perished, but we have learned and may yet learn much of the masterpieces of antiquity from the sard or the plasma whose hardness and minute dimensions have saved it for a later age. In portraiture alone there is an exhaustless fund of interest and of archaeological information. The faces of rulers and great men look from gems only less often than from coins, while the obvious advantage of bearing one’s own likeness for a signet has left us a multitude of portraits of humbler characters with always the hope that an identification here and there may reveal the lineaments of some man in whom history has created a deathless interest. Finally the knowledge of costumes, of the forms of weap- ons and articles for every conceivable use, is obviously advanc- ed by this study, and in the deciphering of the inscriptions borne by many gems lies an unlimited field for conjecture and research. The signatures alone have revealed the names of many artists that would otherwise have been lost. Turning now from the standpoint of the student to that of the collector, little needs to be said. His interest is obvious, INTEREST IN ANTIQUITY 5 and to scorn or ignore him is unfair. He has accomplished his good and his evil: good in the stimulation to research that, without his eagerness and his resources, might have been long delayed or never attempted : evil, in that the same eagerness and the limitation of his requirements have resulted in much superficial and often destructive work whereby op- portunities for illumination have been obscured or lost. The Hermes of Praxiteles was identified positively only from the fact of its discovery just where Pausanias wrote that it stood. Had it been found by some ignorant excavator and smuggled out of the country for private gain, we would have had a beautiful example of ancient art, but probably the world would never have known it for the very work of the great master. But there is another reason why mere collecting, even on its crudest lines, must not be unqualifiedly condemned. It is the most obvious source and beginning of interest, often of real knowledge. That alone marks it for a commendable taste whose abuses only should be attacked and circumscribed. You can hardly become the owner of a single gem without a grow- ing desire to know something of the story it has to tell, and no one is apt to become a collector in such a field without having somewhere in his nature, to be revealed and cultivated, a taste for the secrets of antiquity and a curiosity about its message for to-day. This brings me to a consideration of the third type of antiquarian, combining in varying proportions the attributes of both student and collector. For want of a better term let us call him the Romantic Archaeologist. It is to such that the classic intaglio appeals most strongly, if only because of each gem’s close personal associations with some individual who lived from, say, two to five thousand years ago : a man of one of those races that have shaped our own life and thought, our politics and our ethics, all that make us what we are. I take it there can be little beyond a purely scientific interest in what we may call the independent and dead civiliza- tions: that of the Incas, and, in some degree, those of many Oriental peoples, but Greece and Rome, of however long ago, 6 INTRODUCTION cru never be disassociated from ourselves, must live always in tbe mind of every one to whom history and biography mean anything. Here it is that the spirit of romance appeals most powerfully and in direct proportion to the measure in which wre can make it particular and real. In this connection each gem, so far as it can speak and be understood, has its story to tell, and the imagination of the true lover of romance thrills at the touch of the bit of sard or chalcedony that has been part of scenes that history has made immortal: a thing that some man who lived then has had fashioned according to his indi- vidual needs or taste or whim; and when one can come even closer than this and spell out ancient truths, however trivial, the thrill grades upward into a sensation akin to awe. I wonder what a man’s feeling would be could he become the owner of the signet of Julius Caesar — that famous stone engraved with a Venus Victrix, his patron goddess? Very probably it is still in existence somewhere, perhaps unrecog- nized in some collection, for we know nothing of it beyond the device and the certainty that it was a work of the best art. Perhaps tomorrow the plough may turn it up. We have the signet of the Emperor Constantius II, cut in a beautiful sapphire and showing him spearing a wild boar. A recumbent female figure typifies the city of Caesarea, near which the exploit was accomplished, and all is made clear by the inscrip- tion the stone bears. A small sard intaglio of a Victory, en- graved in the style of consular art, said to have been found in the sarcophagus of Lucius Scipio Barbatus, Consul 298 B. C., was, if the record be straight, undoubtedly his signet; while King, in pp. 146-147 of his Handbook of Engraved Gems, indulges in one of those speculations always most fascinating and which looks toward the identification of a sard, engraved with a portrait (?) head and half the circumference of a shield (PI. XVIII, 25), with the signet of the great Marcellus, used after his death by Hannibal upon forged letters which he sent to various towns. In Chapter III of Part III of this work, I give a list of the devices worn by those historical characters of whose signets INTEREST IN ANTIQUITY 7 we have any record, but even the far slighter and much less consequential stories of two gems in my possession may be of interest here, as indicating the possibilities. The first is a mottled jasper, red and yellow, somewhat chipped : a stone favored by the Greek gem-cutters of the fifth century B. C. The character of the work, though rudely and cheaply done, does not prohibit dating it from that period, and the fact that the gem is a ring-stone, without border, indicates the end of the century. It shows a male figure wear- ing a long gown and pouring some liquid on the ground from a conical vessel (PI. VIII, 8). At once our thought turns to that closing ceremony of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when liba- tions of water were poured toward the East and West from top-shaped vessels. The form of the vessel, the sacerdotal character of the dress, and the peculiarity of the design all point to its being a representation of this act, and such a device would be taken for a signet only by an initiate. Now at the time when we have guessed our gem to have been cut and worn none but a Greek was eligible for initiation, and, doubtless, Athens furnished the great majority of neophytes. Add to this that the stone was procured at Taormina, was probably found in the neighborhood, and that the famous Athenian expedition against Syracuse wintered, 415-416 B. C. at Naxos, the site of which lies just below, and there seems fair reason, at least, to fancy that this very gem was the signet of a soldier of that ill-fated army; not a leader or a man of wealth, but a well-to-do citizen of the greatest city the in- tellectual world has ever known, who had come to lay down his life for her empire in a field where misguided ambition led her to her defeat and to the beginning of her decadence. One does not often find an object with more dramatic associations than this. The second gem is a rather crude figure of a horse bearing a palm branch (PI. XXVII, 13). The workmanship shows it to be of the Roman period, when the interest in the games of the circus had become a popular passion. Evidently the owner of this signet had taken his favorite racer for a device, the palm 8 INTRODUCTION branch indicating some victory — some “big-killing”, as our racing men of today might phrase it. In the field are the three Greek letters, ATP, reversed so as to be read in an impression. Possibly this is an abbreviation of the owner’s name, but, in view of the subject and motive, it would be more likely to be that of the horse, and the chance of deciphering it naturally appealed to me. If I found an appropriate name, I reasoned, the probability would be much strengthened. Now in Greek there are not many words that begin with ATP. Outside of a few proper names, none of which seemed very apt, the problem resolved itself into two more striking alternatives. ’At plant os, “the Unconquered”, struck me as being one that in its very ultimateness might expose an owner to the con- stant chance of a rather ridiculous anti-climax. ’ATpvtwvp, “the Tireless” or “the Unwearied”, an epithet of Athena, was in every way appropriate, and I believe it to be the correct solution, one that seems to me to add a definite bit of romantic glamor to an otherwise ordinary gem. FORGERIES I now approach a topic most closely interwoven with the study and collecting of gems, as it is with every other branch of archaeology and connoisseurship. Between the student, the connoisseur, and the collector on the one hand, and their arch enemy the forger on the other, the contest is bitter and, seem- ingly, unending. I have suggested above why the danger is less, at the present time, in the case of engraved gems than in other and more fashionable fields, but we cannot deny that it is a real danger to most of those for whom this book is written : people whose interest in the subject may be inchoate and whose knowledge is, as yet, slender. These have a right to look for some suggestions that may guide and fortify them, as far as possible, against perils that strike at the very roots of the interest we have and the pleasure we find in such pursuits. Let me begin with the indisputable statement that it is FORGERIES 9 always possible, granting the highest measure of knowledge on a subject, the greatest technical skill, and the utmost care, for a forger to produce work in any line that will deceive the most erudite and experienced critic. Then let me add that practically he never quite succeeds in doing it. Somewhere or other he slips, and, sooner or later, detection follows. Now if you ask for a hard and fast test or rule that can be applied, such as certain writers have been prompt to give, I can only answer that the very existence of such a test or rule would negative my statement, because the forger would need only to learn it and meet its requirements. It is in study and knowledge of the subject — of the many minute elements that argue for genuineness — that our safety lies, and in the re- sultant instinct— a sort of collector’s sixth sense — that is finally acquired from the handling and analysis of the objects themselves. For the reason that a rational classification, however arbitrary, is apt to help in the discussion of such matters, if only by formulating our ideas, let me divide intaglios into five classes from the standpoint of their genuineness. First: those unquestionably ancient. Second: those ancient in all reasonable probability. Third : those whose antiquity is a matter of more or less balancing doubts. Fourth: those that are probably forgeries. Fifth : those that are certainly modern work. For the beginner all gems are in the third class, whence, aided by the opinions of students and experts and by his own growing knowledge, he will find them gravitating toward either end of the list. It is only honest to say, however, that, even or the wisest and most erudite, there remain a few that he cannot honestly take from class three, and these are, naturally, e least desirable of all. Classes four and five are always interesting for purposes of study and comparison, but the es advice is to try to confine your purchases to classes one and two. You will make enough mistakes to fill classes three, our and five quite satisfactorily, and the experience you pay 10 INTRODUCTION for is the best foundation for ultimate knowledge. I would advise the beginner never to give much over five dollars — better one or two — for a gem. Be thankful for the lack of demand that enables you to get them now for such prices, and consider that it is upon finer gems, those for which the forger hopes to get a good price, that he can afford to expend his best knowledge and his most deceptive arts. In taking advice always bear in mind the limitations of the dealer. I doubt if any trade is more demoralizing than that in antiquities, and, however honest the man, there is always the temptation to believe what he wants to believe — what it is to his financial interest to believe — especially when it is a mere matter of an opinion or a not very perilous guarantee. Then, too, in view of the small number of gems that come into his hands, the few sales and the trivial prices, I doubt if any dealer, certainly none in America, is an expert. His honest opinion is practically valueless except in the most obvious cases. A point worth considering, however, is that, unless he be consciously and deliberately dishonest, we can often learn something from the locality from which a gem has come, and the fact that the sources of supply of certain dealers are largely local sometimes helps toward diagnosis. A case in point is a little head of Athena, once in my possession, that, at first glance, made me strongly suspicious that it was eighteenth century work. The seller, a dealer, stated that he had got it at Aintab, the ancient Antiochia-ad-Taurum, in Asia Minor. I believed the man to be honest, but, in any event, if he had been going to lie as to the place of discovery, the chances are immeasurable that he would have chosen some point that was more generally known: a name that would have meant something to a buyer instead of one that few Americans are familiar with. In fact, I had observed that “Antioch” and “Tyre” were the sources of most of his gems and I suspected them to be his stock provenances when he didn’t know. Granting, then, the truth of his statement, as I think it may be granted, the probability of a modern for- gery ever finding its way to Aintab is so slender that it may FORGERIES 11 be practically ignored. I can add that a closer and more careful study of the stone went far to negative the suspicion to which the first glance gave rise. And now let us consider a few of the general principles, which have a bearing in passing on the question of the antiquity of engraved gems. Material. — In the first place, remember that the harder and more precious stones were not used by ancient engravers : the diamond and the ruby perhaps never; the sapphire and emerald very rarely. As to the stones that were used, these chapters will indicate more fully, period by period. Size. — In the second place, size is to be taken seriously into account, and here we must bear in mind that, with the exception of the earlier forms, scarabs, scaraboids etc. which were pierced, often for swivel rings and generally for suspen- sion from wrist or neck, the stones were made for ring signets and could not be too large for that purpose. It should be noted, too, that many of the late Gnostic talismans and amulets were large and evidently not intended to be worn in rings. Very few ancient intaglios were used as ornaments. The exact opposite is true of the cameos, generally made for the orna- mentation of clothes, armor or utensils; but the forgers down to the time of the Poniatowski sale do not seem to have real- ized either of these facts. To them a large surface offered better opportunities for groups of figures and they saw no reason against its use in the case of the intaglio. Thus most of the Poniatowski gems betray their falsity by their large size alone. Conversely the ancient signet stones were apt to be rel- atively thicker than the modern imitations. The old rings were heavy and the gem-cutters, working by hand alone, had no occasion to cut the stones into the very thin slices made easy by our modern mechanical devices. This rule of course is much less universal than the one calling for a circumference not too large for a ring setting, and many thin stones, some of them cut down in modern times, are undoubtedly genuine. Still, the principle is worth remembering and applying. 12 INTRODUCTION Shape. — The ancients may be said to have abhorred angles, and most of their stones are oval or circular. Some few incline toward the square but these are not common and the angles are rarely, if ever, sharp. Octagonal shapes seem to occur only in gems that have been re-cut in mediaeval or modern times, sometimes, probably, on the theory of the octagon’s mystic significance as representing the ogdoad of Pythagoras, or on account of its Masonic vogue. The face of the stone was very often cut convex, and, especially in the cases of transparent and translucent stones, both sides, because the depth thus gained helped the cutting and added to the beauty of the intaglio. A few garnets with convex face and concave back are probably due to desired light effects. A convex back that meets a flat face is anathema among an- cient stones. Also it must be remembered that slight ir- regularity of outline or back is a very favorable sign. Stones cut by hand often show this. Lathe-shaped stones are absolute- ly regular, and only a painstaking forger or one working on a sufficiently important piece to render it worth his while to take pains, bothers to do much hand shaping. Ignorant buyers and rich tourists do not demand it and why should he undertake unnecessary labor? Sometimes on the back of ancient gems, especially sards, are found two slight depres- sions or some remains of them. Their purpose is doubtful : perhaps to help fix the gem for engraving or in the ring. This peculiarity has never, to my knowledge, been imitated. Surface Appearance. — Naturally most ancient stones show some surface indications of their antiquity, depending of course on the wear and tear of use and on the exposure and vicissitudes of centuries. There is a dullness, occasional scratches and often a minute disintegration of the stone which the glass shows — an even wear on all equally exposed surfaces, which is distinctly different from the elaborate scratching of the forger, the action of powerful acids or the appearance presented by stones that have been crammed down a turkey’s throat and subjected to the action of its gizzard — a not un- common trick. Obviously gems found in some tomb where FORGERIES 13 they have been protected from the elements etc. may show little or no signs of the action of time, but the rule generally holds fairly well. In this connection, however, must be considered the frequent practice of repolishing ancient gems, if only to clear from the surface the paste with which it was fastened into the ring bezel or the adhering particles of disintegrating metal. Naturally the backs of gems are apt to need and to show this more than the faces, for unless the finder or later owner be very ignorant, he will let the face alone, since a repolished face is not to be desired from an archaeological standpoint. 