Late Bronze Age copper smelting in the southeastern Alps: how standardized was the smelting process? Evidence from Trans
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Late Bronze Age copper smelting in the southeastern Alps: how standardized was the smelting process? Evidence from Transacqua and Segonzano, Trentino, Italy A. Addis 1
&
I. Angelini 2 & G. Artioli 1
Received: 21 October 2016 / Accepted: 29 December 2016 / Published online: 7 February 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Abstract The smelting copper slags from the archaeological sites of Transacqua and Segonzano in Trentino (Italy) were fully analysed to study the extraction of copper from copper and iron sulphide minerals that were carried out in the southeastern Alps during the Late Bronze Age. A combined approach involving physical, chemical, mineralogical and petrographic analyses was applied on over 130 copper slags from Transacqua and Segonzano. Three different types of slags were distinguished from the mineralogical and chemical points of view, differing in the size and relative amount of the unreacted sulphides and matte, the size of metallic copper prills, the ratio between unreacted quartz and newly formed silicate phases and viscosity. By combining all the observations, it is suggested that the three types of slags are the product of a Cu-smelting process formed by three main operations: slagging, matting and refining, which were standardised in the southeast Alps between the fourteenth and the eleventh century BC. Keywords Copper slags . Copper smelting . Metallurgy . Copper extraction . Late Bronze Age . Southeastern Alps . Italy
Introduction The southeastern Alpine smelting sites of Transacqua and Segonzano, Trentino, Italy, are known for the extensive * A. Addis [email protected]
1
Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
2
Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali: Archeologia, Storia dell’Arte, del Cinema e della Musica, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
metallurgical activities of raw copper production (Preuschen 1973; Weisgerber and Goldenberg 2004; Cierny 2008), which took place in the area between the fourteenth and the eleventh century BC, that is, the Alpine Recent and Final Bronze Ages, hereafter called Late Bronze Age or LBA (Perini 1988; Marzatico 2000; Giumlia-Mair 2005). As for the majority of the LBA Alpine smelting sites, at Transacqua and Segonzano, there is abundant evidence of smelting slags that may be used to interpret the technology of the metal production process. Slags are the most common and ubiquitous findings, although specific sites also provide other evidence of the metallurgical activities, such as the renowned site of Acqua Fredda, where several furnaces have been excavated and locally preserved (Piel et al. 1992; Metten 2003; Cierny et al. 2004) or the site of Segonzano, where wooden structures related to metallurgy are being investigated (Silvestri et al. 2011). The LBA Alpine smelting process has been the subject of intensive research (Perini 1988; Cattoi et al. 1995; Anguilano et al. 2002; Herdits 2003; Metten 2003; Cierny et al. 2004) and in the past, the lack of a comprehensive mineralogical and physicochemical appro
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