First evidence for alloying practices in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant (4500–3800 BCE) as revealed by metallography

Thomas Rose; Stefano Natali; Andrea Brotzu; Shay Bar; Yuval Goren

doi:10.1186/s40494-023-01030-2

First evidence for alloying practices in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant (4500–3800 BCE) as revealed by metallography

Thomas Rose, Stefano Natali, Andrea Brotzu, Shay Bar, Yuval Goren

Department of Archaeology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Excavations at the Chalcolithic site Fazael in the central Jordan Valley uncovered a large number of metal items, many of them polymetallic copper alloys cast in the lost wax technique. Metallography and SEM–EDS analysis on a subset of the assemblage confirm previous notions of the lost wax metallurgy in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant but extend them significantly in three aspects: The Fazael metal assemblage is slightly depleted in its arsenic content compared to metal assemblages from other sites, silt-sized quartz inclusions in unalloyed and polymetallic copper items, and the presence of unalloyed copper inclusions. These latter provide the earliest direct evidence for mixing of different metal types in West Asia, potentially alloying or recycling.

Original language	English
Article number	193
Journal	Heritage Science
Volume	11
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-01030-2
State	Published - Dec 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 766311. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 457/21).

Funding Information:
The presented research is part of a PhD project carried out by TR and supervised by YG, PF, and Francesca Balossi Restelli (Sapienza—Università di Roma). The authors thank Haggai Cohen-Klonymus (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) for his support as area manager of Fazael 2. TR is thankful to Laura Zortea (Sapienza—Università di Roma) for her support in preparing the metallographic sections. The comments of the anonymous reviewers considerably improved the article.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

Alloying
Chalcolithic
Fazael
Lost wax casting
Metallography
Mixing
Polymetallic copper alloys
SEM–EDS
Southern Levant
Unalloyed copper inclusions

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Conservation
Chemistry (miscellaneous)
Archaeology
Materials Science (miscellaneous)
Archaeology
Computer Science Applications
Spectroscopy

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10.1186/s40494-023-01030-2

Cite this

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title = "First evidence for alloying practices in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant (4500–3800 BCE) as revealed by metallography",

abstract = "Excavations at the Chalcolithic site Fazael in the central Jordan Valley uncovered a large number of metal items, many of them polymetallic copper alloys cast in the lost wax technique. Metallography and SEM–EDS analysis on a subset of the assemblage confirm previous notions of the lost wax metallurgy in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant but extend them significantly in three aspects: The Fazael metal assemblage is slightly depleted in its arsenic content compared to metal assemblages from other sites, silt-sized quartz inclusions in unalloyed and polymetallic copper items, and the presence of unalloyed copper inclusions. These latter provide the earliest direct evidence for mixing of different metal types in West Asia, potentially alloying or recycling.",

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note = "Funding Information: This project has received funding from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk{\l}odowska-Curie grant agreement No 766311. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 457/21). Funding Information: The presented research is part of a PhD project carried out by TR and supervised by YG, PF, and Francesca Balossi Restelli (Sapienza—Universit{\`a} di Roma). The authors thank Haggai Cohen-Klonymus (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) for his support as area manager of Fazael 2. TR is thankful to Laura Zortea (Sapienza—Universit{\`a} di Roma) for her support in preparing the metallographic sections. The comments of the anonymous reviewers considerably improved the article. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.",

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First evidence for alloying practices in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant (4500–3800 BCE) as revealed by metallography

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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