Roman one-piece glandes mold

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Völlig[1] has included an image of a lead glans[2] which is on one side formed like many other glandes, but on the other side it is concave. This has been found at Tauromenium (Sicily) and was unpublished. He asumes that a one-piece mold, i.e. an open mold, has been used for casting.

Völling's asumption comprehensible because molten lead shrinks before solidification. The concave form might even be intensified by movements of the mold with the not yet solidified lead. There the lead would move around, touch the side of the cavity and solidifying there. The depiction given in the paper does not allow to determine if that is the case.

The reconstructed mold should be cheap - at least for Roman purses - regarding material and amount of work. One material available nearly everywhere is clay. This has been used extensively by the Roman for e.g. dishes, bottles and lamps. When doing mass production of glandes it certainly would have been interesting do also make the molds in mass production, maybe similar to the mass production of lamps. Lamps and other pottery had ornaments like e.g. gladiator reliefs on them. These were produced from negative molds of these reliefs. Such molds or part of them can be seen in many museums. They were made from clay too. Working like that would have resulted in quick and easy manufacturing of uniform glandes.

For the pracatical reconstruction of this workflow it has been decided to alter the workflow a bit. For the stamp for forming the casting mold wood was chosen instead of clay. Wood was also readily available and is easy to work with. So the first step of the workflow was to carve into a piece of wood the bottom form of the glans.

For the second step clay has been collected in the nature. This has been formed into a bricklike object and the stamp has been pressed multiple times into it to form multiple cavities for casting. After drying of that piece the mold was ready for casting. When used like that the clay can be reused when the mold has been worn-out by casting. The mold can also be burned to make it water-proof and maybe more resistant against wearing out.

The last step was the casting. Some lead has been molten and poured into each of the cavities. It has been noticed that it requires some practice to pour the correct amound of lead into a cavity to get even and correct projetile sizes. Otherwise this step was easy and the glandes easily fell out when the mold has been turned top down.

Might it have been a wood or clay stamp the overall production flow provided the methods for a quick, easy and cheap production of the found lead glans using known Roman technology. So this reconstruction can be considered to be a success.

[1] Thomas Völling: Funditores im Römischen Heer. Saalburg-Jahrb. 45, 1990, 24-58.

[2] Private property: R. Rosenberg, Munich