DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0287
206 FOR WORKS IN HARD AND SOFT STONE
bow-drill could be used in architectural or sculptural
work.1
The running-drill developed naturally from the bow-drill,
but not from the auger. As already explained, the running-
drill was merely a bow-drill whose cutting-point was used
obliquely in motion. Guided carefully, it could trace long
furrows in any direction.
It has been assumed2 that there was a transitional stage
from the static to the running-drill which can be detected
in a series of parallel borings made by a simple drill which
were afterwards chiselled over and joined up into a furrow
(see above, p. 134). But this is a difficult assumption. For
we find both in medieval sculpture3 and in the unfinished
work of Michelangelo4 that rows of parallel holes bored by
a simple drill are found extensively. Their purpose was to
honeycomb a certain area of the marble so as to make it
easier to clear out later with the chisel. A row of a dozen
holes can make the task of the chiseller much more easy.
If the holes are deep his task is still easier, for the whole
fabric of the marble may be eaten into and so there is far
less resistence to the chisel. Exactly similar series of holes
visible in drapery grooves on the Athena No. 140 in the
Acropolis Museum were no doubt cut for exactly the same
purpose. The same purpose was in the artist’s mind when
he cut the row of drill-holes seen on a Nike of the Balustrade
of the Nike Temple,5 though here the original purpose of the
holes was to break down the marble in the primary stages of
the work, and not merely to cut a local groove in the later
stages. These holes are the technical traces of the very first
work on the block of marble which has been cut down
almost to the level of the end of the holes. It is, indeed,
easy to see how the whole modern process of ‘pointing’
1 Blumner, Technologie, iii, p. 220.
2 Ashmole, 1930, p. 102.
3 No. 6 in the Louvre (‘Ange Thurifere’). A twelfth-century sculpture.
4 The ‘Slaves’ in the Louvre. Long rows of drill-holes along the outline
of the legs. 5 Rhys Carpenter, op. cit., pi. xxxiv. 2.
bow-drill could be used in architectural or sculptural
work.1
The running-drill developed naturally from the bow-drill,
but not from the auger. As already explained, the running-
drill was merely a bow-drill whose cutting-point was used
obliquely in motion. Guided carefully, it could trace long
furrows in any direction.
It has been assumed2 that there was a transitional stage
from the static to the running-drill which can be detected
in a series of parallel borings made by a simple drill which
were afterwards chiselled over and joined up into a furrow
(see above, p. 134). But this is a difficult assumption. For
we find both in medieval sculpture3 and in the unfinished
work of Michelangelo4 that rows of parallel holes bored by
a simple drill are found extensively. Their purpose was to
honeycomb a certain area of the marble so as to make it
easier to clear out later with the chisel. A row of a dozen
holes can make the task of the chiseller much more easy.
If the holes are deep his task is still easier, for the whole
fabric of the marble may be eaten into and so there is far
less resistence to the chisel. Exactly similar series of holes
visible in drapery grooves on the Athena No. 140 in the
Acropolis Museum were no doubt cut for exactly the same
purpose. The same purpose was in the artist’s mind when
he cut the row of drill-holes seen on a Nike of the Balustrade
of the Nike Temple,5 though here the original purpose of the
holes was to break down the marble in the primary stages of
the work, and not merely to cut a local groove in the later
stages. These holes are the technical traces of the very first
work on the block of marble which has been cut down
almost to the level of the end of the holes. It is, indeed,
easy to see how the whole modern process of ‘pointing’
1 Blumner, Technologie, iii, p. 220.
2 Ashmole, 1930, p. 102.
3 No. 6 in the Louvre (‘Ange Thurifere’). A twelfth-century sculpture.
4 The ‘Slaves’ in the Louvre. Long rows of drill-holes along the outline
of the legs. 5 Rhys Carpenter, op. cit., pi. xxxiv. 2.