On Pins and Needles: Tracing the Evolution of Copper-base Alloying at Tepe Yahya, Iran, via ICP-MS Analysis of Common-place Items

The production of speiss (iron arsenide) during the Early Bronze Age in Iran

“…Whether the speiss was used as an alloying agent or as a castable material in its own right is unknown, but the evidence from Shahr-i Sokhta (Hauptmann et al, 2003) and Poros (Doonan et al, 2007) may suggest that the impetus for producing ferrous speiss on the Iranian Plateau came from a desire for a more reliable source of arsenic than the usual green copper ores which may or may not contain arsenic. It has already been shown how arsenical copper was the alloy of choice on the Iranian Plateau well into the 2nd millennium BCE (Stech and Pigott, 1986;Thornton et al, 2002), and the rise of large, lowland 3rd millennium cities like Shahr-i Sokhta and Shahdad in eastern Iran undoubtedly led to an increased demand for arsenical copper. This demand could have been fulfilled by importing ingots of ferrous speiss from smaller highland sites located closer to the arsenic-bearing ores, such as Tepe Hissar.…”

A Re-evaluation of inverse segregation in prehistoric As-Cu objects

“…Arsenic-copper alloys were the first to be produced by mankind, appearing in the archaeological record as early as c. 5000 BC on the Iranian plateau (Thornton et al, 2002), and later in Central Europe in the fourth and early third millennia BC. Because of its early beginnings, and common production throughout several regions worldwide including the Americas, Europe, and Asia, the alloy is of particular interest to archaeologists and ancient historians.…”

Identification of ancient gilding technology and Late Bronze Age metallurgy by EDXRF, Micro-EDXRF, SEM-EDS and metallographic techniques

“…Amongst the wide variety of modern analytical techniques that are employed in the study of metals (some examples in [3][4][5][6][7]), energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive analysis (SEM-EDS) for elemental analyses and electronic and optical microscopy (OM) for microstructural studies are well established techniques (some examples in [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]). EDXRF, either in its conventional form or as micro-XRF, and SEM-EDS can be described as nondestructive (i.e.…”