Analyses of the Ingot GodF. Hummel and D. Ankner

INGOT GOD ENKOMI

Examination report

Bronze god Nergal 12th c. B.C.

Findspot: Enkomi (Cyprus)

Museum: Nicosia (Cyprus). Inv. no. 1145 (Prof. Schaeffer)

RGZM no. 73/340

X-ray findings (R 75/289-297)

Overall X-ray images clearly showed that the figure was made from four parts.

1) The original statue was fully modelled in the round, with the legs and feet largely naturalistically and unclothed.

2) The shield was made separately and encloses, capsule-like, the fist-shaped end of the arm on its lower side. The fist was not naturalistically worked before the shield was attached.

3) The ingot base and the formally primitive casing of the legs (reaching at the front to knee height, at the back to the thigh) were applied together as an overcast on the already existing statue. The bronze of the original statue consists of a porous material, whereas the overcast is considerably more homogeneous.

According to the X-ray images and their interpretation, the statue (see 1) and the shield (see 2) were made as a related whole. Only at a later point in time was the ingot base with the leg casing (see 3) applied as an overcast.

Chemical composition

Four small samples were taken from the statue: one sample each comes from the body (at hip height on the back), from the recast (at the level of the back of the knee), from the shield and from the base. X-ray fluorescence analyses showed that in all four cases relatively pure bronze alloys are present, which are very similar to one another:

Handwritten: handwritten annotation "ENKOMI" at top right, with a small handwritten mark