Ancient Raw Copper from Primary Smelting Sites in Cyprus
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Ancient Raw Copper from Primary Smelting Sites in Cyprus W. Fasnacht1 and J.P. Northover2 , 1 Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, EMPA, Section for Inorganic Chemistry and Characterisation of Solids, EMPA, Ueberlandstrasse 129, CH-8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland 2 Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Begbroke Business and Science Park, Sandy Lane, Yarnton, Oxford, OX5 1PF, UK ABSTRACT Finds of metallic copper from various primary smelting sites in the Sia valley in Cyprus have been analysed by ICP-OES for their composition and by optical and electron microscopy for metallography. Results show a characteristic pattern of impurities for each of the sites examined which allow an assignment to specific types of ore body and geological matrix. Different zones of the Cyprus Ophiolite Complex were exploited in different periods in antiquity, but these results show different types could be exploited contemporaneously within a specific period, especially during the first millennium BC. One location in this area, Agia Varvara-Almyras, an Iron Age copper smelting site with the only complete chain of operation recorded in ancient Cypriote metallurgy, is used to show how analytical work can guide future field surveys to find ancient furnaces, slag heaps and mines. The ultimate goal of the project is to extend it to reconstruct the complete history of copper production in a well-defined mining district over the last 4000 years. INTRODUCTION The paper presented here is dealing with metal finds from archaeological excavations at Agia Varvara - Almyras in the Sia valley in Cyprus and from a survey of sites with archaeometallurgical material in the surrounding area. With the permission of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus these sites, all of them with evidence of primary copper production from the first millennium BC, were surveyed with a metal detector and over 150 metal samples found and exported for metallurgical investigation. The site of Agia Varvara-Almyras, which is on the northern slope of the Troodos Ophiolite Complex, has been under regular excavation since 1988 and represents the first and only site on Cyprus with the entire chain of ancient metal production, from the mine to the copper. All finds date from Cypro-Archaic II to Cypro-Hellenistic II, i.e. from 600-150 BC. After a total of 15 field seasons excavations at the site of Agia Varvara-Almyras were ended in 1999. Over ten different furnace units were found in situ, and all but one, a possible bread oven, were connected with copper working. The other sites mentioned, Sia-Anogia and Sia-Kokkinomoutti, are in the same area and within 1-2km of Agia Varvara [1-10]. One important result of the excavations is that Almyras has produced the only ancient copper smelting furnace to be reconstructed to its full size, form and function on Cyprus. Indeed, for the first millennium BC it is the only complete furnace in the whole Near East; none of the ancient
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mining districts of Timna in the Sinai, Ergani Maden in Anatolia,
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