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COPPER AND COPPER ALLOYS IN ANCIENT IRAQ, SYRIA AND PALESTINE: SOME NEW ANALYSES
Author(s) -
MOOREY P. R. S.,
SCHWEIZER F.
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
archaeometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1475-4754
pISSN - 0003-813X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4754.1972.tb00062.x
Subject(s) - copper , palestine , antimony , tin , arsenic , ancient history , metallurgy , archaeology , history , materials science
In a pilot‐programme to increase evidence for the history of copper‐alloying in ancient Iraq, Syria and Palestine 128 objects in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, were tested with a point‐source linear X‐ray spectrometer for tin, arsenic and antimony. These analyses showed the gradual introduction of tin‐copper alloys into Iraq after ca . 2750 b.c. (Early Dynastic IIIA), into Syria a little later and into Palestine by the end of the third millennium b.c. , though numerous artefacts continue to be of copper or arsenical‐copper until well into the second millennium b.c. at least. With the appearance of tin‐copper alloys the percentage of arsenic in the copper objects noticeably declines indicating that the earlier arsenical‐coppers were deliberately produced under controlled conditions.