China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Metals
Published in Jill L. Baker, Technology of the Ancient Near East, 2018
When complete, the soil cap was removed and the contents of the pit, including the charcoal, soil, and metal, were placed into a large vessel of water. This process separated the metal from the rest, which appeared as pinkish-yellow blobby fragments (Ancient Arts: Prehistoric Copper Smelting in a Pit!). Fragments like these were transferred to a crucible for further refining (Figure 5.3), and large ingots of nearly pure copper were produced for transportation. The copper ingots, referred to as oxhide ingots, looked like the stretched out hide of an animal, but sometimes they were fashioned into a bun shape. Numerous examples were discovered in the Cape Gelidonya and Ulu Burun shipwrecks (Institute of Nautical Archaeology). The Ulu Burun shipwreck, for example, sank ca. 1300 bce off the coast of Turkey and contained 354 oxhide ingots and 121 bun-shaped ingots, totaling ca. 10 tons of copper.
Late Bronze Age Metal Exploitation and Trade: Sardinia and Cyprus
Published in Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 2020
Serena Sabatini, Fulvia Lo Schiavo
Already in the late 1980 s, Nuragic pottery was recognized among the many finds from the site, and subsequently published. The ceramic remains were found scattered all over the site in levels dated LH IIIB and LH IIIC.[182–185] Moreover, a hoard of six pieces of oxhide ingots was found in Room N in a Late Minoan IIIB (LH IIIB) level; one of them being sampled and submitted to lead isotope analysis, is made of copper from Cyprus.[186] Ongoing petrographic and mineralogical analyses of Mycenaean, Nuragic and local style pottery reveal evidence of connections with Sicilian (Cannatello) and Sardinian (Selargius) settlements (Peter M. Day, University of Sheffield, UK, personal communication, 2019).