How were naval rams produced?

[Eleatic Guest]

Due to the many recent finds, ancient naval rams are currently a hot topic in the forum (Finds from 1st Punic War Sicilian Naval Battle and Bronze ram from Sicily - Images Restoration). I would like to know what do we know
1. about how these bronze rams were produced
2. how were the inscriptions which are found adorning at least two rams made?

I found a bit on both these questions from the pen of the curator of the Athlit ram here (3rd & 4th paragraph). Seems like there is no consensus on the casting process.

According to Ildar, these rams were excavated so far:

1. Athlit ram
2. Piraeus ram
3. Bremerhaven ram
4. Fitzwilliam ram (προεμβόλιον?), now named "Belgammel ram" (Museum of Libya, Tripoli)
5. Turin ram (προεμβόλιον?)
6. Canellopoulos ram (προεμβόλιον?)
7. Fragment of a ram from Octavian's Campsite Memorial in Nikopolis (Archaeological museum of Ioannina)
8. Messina (Acqualadroni) ram
9. 7 Egadi Islands rams:
9.1. 2004
9.2. Catherine D - June 2008
9.3. Vincenzo T (Punic inscription) - 18 August (discovered) and 6 September (lifted) 2010
9.4. Claude D (Latin inscription) - May (discovered) and 20 August (lifted) 2011
9.5. Rachael R - May 2011
9.6. Cecè P (Latin inscription) - 24 August 2011
9.7. 17 November 2011 (fishing boat catch)

[Ildar]

Dear Stefan,

1. about how these bronze rams were produced

Israeli conservator Asaf Oron has conducted full reassessment of the Athlit ram and demonstrated convincingly its production technology in his MA thesis "The Athlit Ram: Classical and Hellenistic Bronze Casting Technology," Texas A&M University, 2001 (available online), and in the subsequent paper "The Athlit Ram Bronze Casting Reconsidered: Scientific and Technical Re-examination," Journal of Archaeological Science 33, 2006, pp. 63–76.

William Murray also addresses this question in "The Ram’s Casting" chapter (pp. 35-38) of his new book "The Age of Titans: The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies," Oxford, 2012. He fully relies on the research of Oron.

2. how were the inscriptions which are found adorning at least two rams made?

Both Latin inscriptions (they are identical in their content) were cast, whereas the Punic one was engraved (the red color in the picture was added by the restorer).

[attachment=3990]ram4-6-latin-inscription.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=3991]ram3-punic-inscription.jpg[/attachment]

According to Ildar, these rams were excavated so far:

I forgot about the ram (???) from the collection of Axel Guttmann.

[attachment=3992]axel-guttmann-ram.jpg[/attachment]