Bronze, Iron, and Gold: Metallurgical Trajectories in the South Caucasus in the Second and First Millennia BC (original) (raw)

Abstract

Between about 1500 and 500 BC, metallurgy in the South Caucasus underwent a series of dramatic transformations. These transformations included the appearance of a new metal (iron), the disappearance and subsequent re-appearance of another (gold), as well as significant transformations in manufacturing technologies and the scale of production of a third (copper alloys). These technological trajectories converge and diverge in ways that defy unilinear, monotonic technological narratives. This talk sketches out the changing patterns of production and use of these three metals using a range of different types of evidence. Copper-alloy manufacture witnessed a dramatic increase in the aggregate scale of production in the late 2nd millennium BC. Both the range of artifact types and the complexity of their manufacture increases, as does the overall quantity of copper-alloy metal in circulation. Cu-Sn and Cu-As alloys predominate, but unalloyed copper and some more exotic alloys such as Cu-Sb are also found. While the Caucasus has long been identified as a major source of copper, recent work has suggested that some local tin exploitation also occurred in the late 2nd millennium BC. Intriguingly, the increase in the aggregate scale of production was not associated with the centralization in the administration of the copper smelting industry. Integration of chemical and spatial data shows that individual copper smelting sites remained small, probably seasonal enterprises, and that metalworkers at contemporary, neighboring smelting sites were supplied with ore from geologically distinct ore sources. Casting, forging, and the manufacture of artifacts also took place at numerous sites, with little evidence of centralization or nucleation of secondary production activities. Sometime after the turn of the 1st millennium BC, iron artifacts began to be used with increasing regularity. While the current understanding of the timing and pace of iron adoption likely requires significant refinement, a general picture has started to emerge. It is clear that a major increase in the use of iron occurred in the 8th-6th centuries BC, somewhat later than elsewhere in southwest Asia. Though the existence of an elaborate bronze industry seems to have delayed the initial adoption of iron, early iron artifacts nonetheless mimic those of bronze, and bimetallic artifacts are common. At least initially, iron- and bronze-working were very closely linked, and the expansion of iron should be understood as closely connected to the expanding appetite for metal that characterized this period. Gold use, on the other hand, follows a technological trajectory that diverges significantly from that of copper alloys. Gold extraction in the Caucasus began by 3000 BC (Early Bronze Age), but the early fluorescence of gold production in the South Caucasus took place in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2400- 1500 BC). However, sometime around the mid-second millennium BC—at around the same time that the complexity and scale of copper alloys expanded—gold drops out of the metallurgical repertoire. This technological abandonment is particularly intriguing given that the Late Bronze Age societies showed a clear appetite for gold-colored objects, as demonstrated by their preference for tin bronze in prestige items and weaponry. It is only later, in the 8th-6th centuries BC, that gold-working reappears in the region, fueling Greek imagination of the region as the home of the legendary “Golden Fleece.” This comparative examination reveals the complicated nature of metallurgical change in the South Caucasus. Metallurgical change cannot simply be characterized as a unilinear progression from technologies involving less technical skill to those involving more technical skill. As such, the Caucasus provides an opportunity to re-think models of metallurgical development across the broader Eurasian sphere.

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