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Primtech Thoughts (The 7 Ancient Metals (Copper (Melting temp. 1085…

- - - - Documented copper trade from ancient mediterranean - Egypt, Assyria, Cyprus, Aegean, Palestine etc.
        
        Complaint tablet cuneiform to Ea-Nasir from Nanni. Wrong grade copper ore, c.1750 BC
      - Smelting process itself: CuCO3 + CO -> Cu + 2CO2 in highly reducing atmosphere
    - - Tal-I-Iblis and Tepe Ghabristan in Iran have early slagged crucible fragments; 5th millenium BC, Iranian Plateau
        
        Belovode and Plocnik in eastern Serbia shown to have early copper smelting, building on established malachite exploitation and use for beads; Miljana Radivojevic - very start of 5th millenium BC
  - - - Likely very early first smelting date too as such low temperature involved, less than 800 degrees
        
        A handful of Pb artefacts, for example bracelets and beads, thought to be of smelted lead from pre 5th mill. BC contexts in Anatolia and Mesopotamia, but first analysed example is lead bead on shaft (spindle whorl?) from a cave in Negev desert, Israel, c. late 5th mill. BC: ref Yahalom-Mack et al 2015.
  - - - Metallic form may have been mistaken for Pb or Sn due to appearance, but often used for cosmetics as powder from Stibnite, Antimony sulphide mineral, in ancient societies, for example Egypt, as kohl
    - - cassiterite and co-smelting
      - Recent paper sourcing ingots from shipwreck from Israel to Cornwall/Devon 12-13th century BC; Berger et al 2019
  - - - Used widely across ancient world, and South America (Colombia) particularly known for range of gold alloys of different colours
        
        This was AD tradition, maintained until arrival of Spanish conquestadors. Shows cultural values entirely for metal, colours, properties and appearances
        
        Lost wax casting used for elaborate model, where casting flaws, feeds and flash on figures were not repaired, implying value on production and wax masters rather than final perfection of each component; ref Uribe-Villages 2012
        
        Implies inherent contemporary Eurocentric bias in the way we consider metal artefacts
        
        Late 1st millennium AD
    - - Soft and doesn't tarnish as noble metal, therefore all about appearances
  - - - Widespread Deposits vs copper and tin ores
    - - Exception is perhaps Chinese furnaces capable of casting pig iron during the Eastern Han dynasty, c. first half of first millennium AD, if not even before in the Qin or Warring States periods, e.g. late Iron Age
        
        Ref: Yunio Li et al 2019, Xuxiebian, Sichuan Province, China
        
        Discuss steel
    - - West/Central African, e.g. Nigeria in the first mill AD, metallurgical industries skipped copper and went straight to Iron, apparently independently invented
        
        Racist ideologies penetrating science and archaeology and way evidence of early smelting in Africa was considered, although there remains more recent and healthy scepticism over the evidence, rather than race
  - - - Often used in ancient tombs; Mesoamerica (Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan, Mexico) early ADs, but used more widely as cinnabar, a mercury bearing mineral.
        Also traces found in tomb of first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, 3rd Cen BC. Cross-culturally linked with rivers - whether underworld or modelling actual rivers and their essence
- - - - History of metallurgy studies in archaeology also subject to the wider theoretical developments outside!
- - - - African ethnography of iron smelts has furnaces decorated with brests and pregnant bellies, symbolising process as birth - also has extensive taboos on who can come into contact with the furnace in case they endager the success of the smelt
    - - Kobolds and Nickel ores causing sickness and death in German medieval mining and smelting operations