Torrey, Charles C.  “The Foundry of the Second Temple at Jerusalem.” Journal of Biblical Literature 55 (December 1936): 247-60. [Israel/Second Temple/Furnishings]

According to this article a foundry was a feature of Zerubbabel’s temple which took the precious metal brought to the temple as revenue and offering and which came in the form of lumps, fragments, utensils and trinkets of every description and shape, and form it into standard forms for subsequent use.  (See an example in Aaron’s building of the golden calf in Ex. 32:2-4, 24.)  This article goes to great lengths to show that a word referring to this was mistranslated and has misled students, scholars, and translators for generations.  This study is intended to be a corrective to that problem.  It is good for background and to see the potential influence of the temple in non-religious aspects of culture such as performing banking functions, but adds nothing to the study of the temple and its rituals.