COPPER AND BRONZE WORKING IN EARLY THROUGH MIDDLE BRONZE AGE CYPRUS.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Weinstein Balthazar, Judith.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

Archaeology.

0324.

Local Subjects:

0324.

Physical Description:

734 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 47-10A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

The many tombs and rare settlements of Early through Middle Bronze Age Cyprus have yielded a substantial corpus of weapons, tools and ornaments made of copper often alloyed with arsenic or tin. Many questions remain concerning the techniques used to make these objects--we have yet to ascertain the ways in which Early Cypriot (EC) and Middle Cypriot (MC) metallurgists mined, smelted and forged implements for their community. Yet the wealth of EC-MC artifacts, more than three hundred of which have undergone compositional or metallographic analysis, make it possible to document, to some extent, the activities of the ancient Cypriot metal smiths.

This study begins with a reexamination of the analyses--pinpointing and making allowances for problems with the data--in order to document how and of what the Cypriot smiths made their objects. It then reconsiders the entire corpus of copper-based artifacts found in EC through MC sites, in order to identify the range of products forged by the smiths and the ways in which the objects changed over time.

This study of composition, manufacture and typology sheds light on various aspects of the EC through MC metal working tradition. From the Philia Culture through the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, Cypriot smiths appear to have been largely conservative, producing the same classes of objects over and over again. Occasional stylistic or technological innovations may have been brought about by foreign contacts, but for the most part Cypriot smiths seem to have worked in isolation from their Mediterranean neighbors. The introduction of tin bronze in ECIII or MCI, however, seems to have had an effect upon the development of Cypriot metal working. Cypriot smiths apparently recognized differences between bronze and arsenical copper and did not consider the two alloys interchangeable.

Although this study remains incomplete, like the data upon which it is based, it presents a clearer picture of the EC-MC metal working tradition and provides a solid basis for future research.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-10, Section: A, page: 3793.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1986.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

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