Photographer: Andrea Blumtritt | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
Small, drop-shaped bell with a vertical, ring-shaped eyelet, which was used for suspension. The two-part sounding body consists of a concave upper section that merges smoothly into a convex base. The object has a straight opening at the bottom through which a metallic sound ball is visible. The bell was cast in a lost mould. When it was made, the already manufactured ball was embedded in a carbonised clay core. The material acted as insulation when melting out the wax and pouring in the liquid metal alloy, preventing the ball from melting. After the cooled mould had been smashed, the model mass was scraped out of the sound body. The surface of the object is smoothed and highly polished. The eyelet shows clear signs of wear. A deep crack appears on a deep part of the object. The opening of the gold-coloured metalwork is heavily bent. There are many copper-coloured areas of loss on the base, the hue of which is evidence of depletion gilding. (Künne 2005)
