“It remains for us now,” he says, “to establish by undeniable proof how little foundation there is for the opinion of those who pretend that the ancients did not make use of plaster for casting, supporting their opinion on the complete absence of statues and statuettes in plaster, or fragments of any kind found in excavations, when nevertheless thousands of objects of the frailest kind are found, such as stuccoes, vases, terra cotta, glass, wax heads, etc. If it be true that the inclemencies of weather and atmospheric agents could cause the disappearance of plaster saturated with humidity, or placed in conditions favorable to its destruction, it does not necessarily follow that these conditions always reproduce themselves. It suffices, to convince one’s self of this, to _glance at the plates_ 67, 76, 85, in the magnificent work published at St. Petersburg on the antiquities of the Cimmerian Bosphorus. These plates represent plasters preserved in the Museum of the Hermitage, coming from a tomb on Mount Mithridates opened in 1832, and from another tomb at Kertch excavated in 1843. These plasters date back to the fourth century before our era.[22] Adorned with various colors and executed in relief, they were destined to be attached as ornaments to other objects, such as sarcophagi, pilasters, walls, etc.” Well! what if they were? Is this any proof that they were cast? Mr. Perkins is easily satisfied, if he is assured of this fact by looking at engraved plates. Are they all of the same size? Are they identical, as they would be if they were cast from the same mould, or are they like all other plaster and stucco work of the ancients of which we are cognizant,—ornaments modeled by hand? or are they pressures from a flat, shallow mould, like the ectypa? If the latter, they are almost unique; and so far they prove that the artists who made them understood this first and simplest process of casting, or rather of stamping. But from plates it would be impossible to determine this fact, and Mr. Perkins gives us no reason to think they are unlike all the other ancient stucco work. He does not profess to have seen and examined them for himself; at all events, one fact is clear, that these, if they are in plaster, are painted plaster.