The extraordinary wire-making ability of the goldsmiths of remote antiquity was first revealed nearly a century ago. Tools for wire drawing are described in the metalworking section of the treatise of Theophilus, a craftsman Benedictine monk who lived in the twelfth century. Current interest in wire stems, in part, from the desire of specialists to identify forgeries, but it has its roots in the current interest in ancient technology. It is quite possible that some late Greek and Roman jewelry was made by smiths trained in the Egyptian metalworking tradition.