Alloy Types and Copper Sources of Anatolian Copper Alloy Artifacts

1985 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 143-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. H. Gale ◽  
Z. A. Stos-Gale ◽  
G. R. Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
Metal Workers ◽  
Tin Bronze ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Late Chalcolithic ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Economic Developments ◽  
Arsenical Copper

Few will doubt that in the East Mediterranean world and in the Near East the development of metallurgy was an important factor (though certainly not the only one) in the evolution of socio-economic organization in the Late Chalcolithic and especially in the Early and Late Bronze Age. The availability of silver, lead and gold added markedly to the possibilities of the acquisition of prestigious objects by the few, to developments in the concept of wealth and in the development of hierarchical societies. The availability of copper, arsenical copper, and later, tin bronze made possible the production of tools which transformed certain crafts (perhaps particularly carpentry and shipbuilding) and, with the development of weapons, revolutionized warfare.This no doubt led to something of an arms race which put its own pressures on societies in the search for and exploitation of metals. The more successful population groups will have greatly increased the density of their population and changed their structure, not only by moving from local chief to regional monarch but also by that monarch securing his authority by the creation of dependent privileged groups and by the encouragement of the emergence of specialized workers and craftsmen. In turn such socio-economic developments, in which the emergence of class differentiation led to the creation of aristocracies or other forms of elite ruling classes, eventually provided the environments in which skilled metal workers could find the time, necessary incentives and artistic inspiration to develop advanced metalworking skills.

The Aegean

2020 ◽  
pp. 539-570
Author(s):  
Jacke Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
General Lack ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Considerable Depth

Aegeanists rather than Egyptologists have investigated Bronze Age Egypto-Aegean relations. Although a few Egyptologists consider these issues in considerable depth, a general lack of communication still exists between the disciplines. Two issues dominate research and debate: cross-cultural chronology and dating, and consideration of the imported goods and tangible/intangible influence of one civilization upon the other. Less controversial is the issue of contact routes and means, with visible remains and intangible cultural norms. This chapter concerns only Egypt and the Aegean, but they cannot be isolated from developments throughout the East Mediterranean world. All median cultures (and others interacting with them) must also be considered in any discussion. This chapter concentrates mostly on developments since 1990, when Bernal’s Black Athena volumes and the ensuing reaction undoubtedly re-stimulated interest in the subject.

The working of copper-arsenic alloys in the Early Bronze Age and the effect on the determination of provenance

1972 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh McKerrell ◽  
R. F. Tylecote
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Alloy ◽  
Cold Working ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Metal Working ◽  
Copper Ore ◽  
Tin Bronze ◽  
Arsenical Copper ◽  
Copper Arsenic

The earliest copper alloy of the British Bronze Age is arsenical copper, a material relatively short-lived when compared with the succeeding tin bronze but of no little importance when tracing the stages and progress of prehistoric metal working. Like tin, arsenic functions as a mild deoxidant and confers the useful property of work-hardening upon the metal. Copper-arsenic alloys need to be strengthened by cold working, and it was probably this requirement as much as any other that would have led to their eventual disuse and replacement by cast tin bronzes. The normal source of arsenic for such alloys is generally agreed as a constituent of the copper ore actually smelted, usually the grey tetrahedrite tennantite mineral (Coghlan and Case, 1957; Tylecote, 1962), although other suggestions have been made (Charles, 1967).

scholarly journals Primary research on the bronze technology of Lower Xiajiadian Culture in northeastern China

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenyuan Li ◽  
Yanxiang Li ◽  
Lixin Wang ◽  
Kunlong Chen ◽  
Siran Liu
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Metal Production ◽  
Tin Bronze ◽  
Field Evidence ◽  
Technical Ceramics ◽  
Metallurgical Processes ◽  
Arsenical Copper

Abstract The site of Habaqila is located in the area between Inner Mongolia and Liaoning provinces and dated to the 13th–11th centuries BC. It was identified as a metal production workshop of the Lower Xiajiadian Culture and revealed abundant metallurgical remains, including ore fragments, slags, technical ceramics, and stone implements. Scientific analyses demonstrated that polymetallic ores were smelted to produce tin bronze and arsenical copper. Perforated furnaces might have been employed in this process. The site also revealed the first known field evidence of tin smelting in a Bronze Age site of northern China. Systematic investigation of this site increases our understanding of metallurgical processes of Bronze Age culture in northern China.

BEYOND BUTRINT: THE ‘MURSI SURVEY’, 2008

2016 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 269-297
Author(s):  
Richard Hodges ◽  
Erika Carr ◽  
Alessandro Sebastiani ◽  
Emanuele Vaccaro
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Short Report ◽  
Mediterranean Landscapes ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
History Of ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Town

This article provides a short report on a survey of the region to the east of the ancient city of Butrint, in south-west Albania. Centred on the modern villages of Mursi and Xarra, the field survey provides information on over 80 sites (including standing monuments). Previous surveys close to Butrint have brought to light the impact of Roman Imperial colonisation on its hinterland. This new survey confirms that the density of Imperial Roman sites extends well to the east of Butrint. As in the previous surveys, pre-Roman and post-Roman sites are remarkably scarce. As a result, taking the results of the Butrint Foundation's archaeological excavations in Butrint to show the urban history of the place from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, the authors challenge the central theme of urban continuity and impact upon Mediterranean landscapes posited by Horden and Purcell, inThe Corrupting Sea(2000). Instead, the hinterland of Butrint, on the evidence of this and previous field surveys, appears to have had intense engagement with the town in the Early Roman period following the creation of the Roman colony. Significant engagement with Butrint continued in Late Antiquity, but subsequently in the Byzantine period, as before the creation of the colony, the relationship between the town and its hinterland was limited and has left a modest impact upon the archaeological record.

scholarly journals Big-Men and Small Chiefs: The Creation of Bronze Age Societies

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune Iversen
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Early Late ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Big Men

AbstractThis paper investigates to what extent the significant material changes observable at the end of the Neolithic reflect transformations of the underlying social dynamics. Answering this question will help us to understand the formation of Bronze Age societies. The analysis concerns southern Scandinavia with a certain focus on Denmark. The assumption is that the creation of Bronze Age societies must be understood as a long formative process that partly originated in the culturally-heterogeneous Middle Neolithic. Four aspects seem to have been essential to this process: the rise of the warrior figure, the reintroduction of metal, increased agricultural production, and the establishment of one of the characteristic features of the Bronze Age, the chieftain hall. These aspects do not appear simultaneously but are introduced stepby- step starting out in the late Middle Neolithic and early Late Neolithic to fully develop around 2000 BC. Consequently, this paper argues that the final Late Neolithic (LN II, c. 1950-1700 BC) was de facto part of the Earliest Bronze Age.

Did prehistoric landscape management retard the post-glacial spread of woodland in Southwest Asia?

Antiquity ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (294) ◽  
pp. 1002-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Southwest Asia ◽  
Mediterranean Environment ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
Late Season ◽  
Pollen Diagrams ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Trees And Shrubs

Pre-Bronze Age human impacts on the East Mediterranean environment have been hard to detect in pollen diagrams and other off-site contexts. New evidence shows that despite a relatively rapid post-glacial wetting-up of the climate, the re-advance of oak woodland across Southwest Asia was slow. Among the factors likely to have contributed to the apparent disjunction between climate and vegetation is Neolithic landscape management, particularly through regular use of late-season ground fires to encourage grasses at the expense of trees and shrubs.

Cultural Metallurgy—A Key Factor in the Transition from the Chalcolithic to Bronze Age in the Southern Levant

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Nissim Amzallag
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Practical Approach ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Late Chalcolithic ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Bronze Age

The causes of the disappearance of Late Chalcolithic society (Ghassulian) in the early fourth millennium bc remain obscure. This study identifies the collapse as the consequence of a change in the approach to metallurgy from cosmological fundament (Late Chalcolithic) to a practical craft (EB1). This endogenous transition accounts for the cultural recession characterizing the transitional period (EB1A) and the discontinuity in ritual practices. The new practical approach in metallurgy is firstly observed in the southern margin of the Ghassulian culture, which produced copper for distribution in the Nile valley rather than the southern Levant. Nevertheless, the Ghassulian cultural markers visible in the newly emerging areas of copper working (southern coastal plain, Nile valley) denote the survival of the old cosmological traditions among metalworkers of the EB1 culture. Their religious expression unveils the extension of the Ghassulian beliefs attached to metallurgy and their metamorphosis into the esoteric fundaments of the Bronze Age religions.

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