Metallurgical industrial sites have specific characteristics and accessories.
The amount of material on metallurgical sites can give an estimation of their importance in terms of time, number of people employed, local use and trade in objects and metal products. In short, six different components should be present to identify a site as "an industrial metallurgical site":
1) The proximity or availability of mineral resources and water.
2) The presence on the surface of a significant number of processed and unprocessed ore fragments (cracked, natural, partially roasted, roasted and glassy slag.)
3) The remains of objects and structures for the processing of copper such as crucibles, slagged pot sherds, nozzles, tuyeres, furnaces, bellows, benches, barriers to protect people from fire, and water channels.
4) The presence of stone tools, such as grinders, querns, mortars and pestles to crush ore and copper nuggets.
5) The presence of special tools to melt and refine objects such as moulds, anvils, hammers and burnishers.
6) Furthermore, regarding the importance of the relation between religion and copper production in Cypriot Late Bronze Age, the proximity to a cult building should be considered the 6th component
By accident, the excavations at Pyrgos started from a sector (North on the map) where superimposed floors of pit furnaces, benches, querns, stone tools, mortars and slag showed the metallurgical destination of the place (Fig.14).
In primis, was considered that the place could belong to a coppersmith's house. However, the hypothesis falls soon, after discovering that the copper processing installations superimposed on earlier dwellings and directly connected with an olive press-room, as a second area completely equipped for copper production was found in 2005 adjacent the southern wall of the same olive press-room.
The total extension destined to the copper working was almost 600 sq. metres. In addition, the distribution of the reduction copper nuggets suggested the existence, of more rooms devoted to the same activity(Fig.18).
Regarding the number and distribution of the working places and implements, we realize that at Pyrgos there was an uncommon community well organized to produce artefacts of copper and bronze. To give an idea of the number of people involved I will try briefly to sum up the procedure to work the copper according with the evidence found at Pyrgos.
Fig. 14: A glimpse of the North metallurgical area. Grid I2d-I3b+J2c-J3a
After the mining of the ores, the first operation to obtain metal was the enrichment of the minerals. It consisted in crushing ores to facilitate the selection of the best pieces and reduce them in powder for the smelting. Numerous andesite querns and heavy pestles for this operation have been found, including heavy stone rings chipped all around the rim (appendix. Pontieri). However, any heap of waste remains has been found. The selection of the best pieces was important, as the percentage of the metal is proportional to the richness of the mineral smelted. The furnaces found in the Northern sector are of three types.
1) A large (1.80x 1, 80 metres circa) squared low depth (25 centimetres) cavity carved on the floor and bordered by 2 joined lines of small stones.
2) A cylindrical oven (base: 1 metre outside, 45 cm inside) built with stones disposed in superimposed circles, opened by side, and plastered inside.
3) A pit furnace (dim 30 cm inside) made of calcarenite earth, plaster, and very small stones.
In the central metallurgical area (Fig.15), the situation is quite different and all the evidence indicates that the main activities were the casting and refining of the copper objects.
The area is organised in a peculiar manner: a large quantity of calcarenite soil forms a sort of artificial heap in the centre of the room, and a large low bench built of small stones and plaster occupies two thirds of the back wall of the olive press-room starting from the East corner.
In front of this bench there is a battery of small ovens (pit furnaces) arranged inside the calcarenite heap. Each oven was found covered by a flat stone. The inside diameter of these ovens does not exceed twenty centimetres for a depth of thirty centimetres circa.
Fig. 15: Central metallurgical area. Grid I7c-d+I8a-b
More pit furnaces of the same dimensions are distributed irregularly on the top of the calcarenite heap. The ovens are covered in soil up to the top, and a large stone slab covers an opening of ten centimetres at the top. A small jug broken on the side, positioned upside down with the mouth pointed inside the oven, was found on two occasions close to the wall structure of the pit furnace (Fig.16).
No fragments of clay tuyeres have been found, only of nozzles. On the Western side and on the Southern corner a labyrinth of small underground galleries suggests a pipeline connection to supply another line of small ovens. The area includes several ground stone tools (querns, pestles, hammers, rub stones, axes and anvils) found in the pits, on the bench and the floor. Two intact clay moulds for axes (23 and 20 centimetres in length) have been found in two adjacent different ovens in front of the main bench. A swage andesite anvil for shaping swords, with its hammers has been found near a sort of forging in the Eastern corner. More remains of metallurgical activity, including fragments of crucibles and copper reduction nuggets have been found scattered everywhere (Fig. 18). Two large jugs and three long spouted amphoriskoi together with ladle cups have been found collected in two groups near the bench and in the South-Western corner of the court. Some spindle whorls have been found on the bench together with small vases and two askoi. A further three spindle whorls were nearby the ovens on the West side.
Fig. 16: Small jug half burned, with a side spout (missing)
found positioned on an oven I,8 b.
Olive oil as fuel.
The material used as fuel by the ancient metallurgists is an important topic, as it involves many environmental, cultural, and social aspects. Up to the present little attention has been paid to the identification of possible different fuels used in prehistoric times, assuming that the charcoal has been the universal fuel used by all the coppersmiths. The traditional formula of Tylecote CO+CuCO3= 2CO2 +Cu which explains the chemical reaction of the smelting of copper carbonates using the charcoal is not a condition sine qua non, and was not the only system known to smelt the copper in the Bronze Age. It is enough to remember the use of Bitumen in Sumerian civilisation since 3500 BC.
Even today, there are etno archaeological examples of the use of different fuels in the absence of charcoals in desert environments.
Probably, in finding copper furnaces remains there could have been a misunderstanding in the interpretation of the remains of wood (eventually carbonised) believed charcoal prepared in advance. Probably small pieces of dry wood (usually of olive trees) were used to start on the fire, but the pyroclastic procedure was carried on with the addition of a high calorific fuel to achieve the melting point. Necessity is the mother of invention and it is logical that all people had used the most available fuel resource. Probably, in Cyprus, at the beginning of the II millennium BC, what could be simpler that to make and use olive oil rather than charcoal, considering the difficulties of cutting down the trees with stone tools.
At Pyrgos, the peculiar distribution of the copper-working areas around the olive press-room, suggested from the beginning that there should have been some specific relation between the olive oil and the metallurgical activity.
In addition, there were few remains of charcoal inside and around the furnaces. Considering the amount of charcoal necessary to reach and maintain the copper smelting temperature and the number of the pit furnaces found, the remains are almost inconsistent.
Moreover, the small dimensions and the structure of the southern court ovens make difficult to fill up them with pieces of charcoal during the melting operation. However, it was very easy to fill them with olive oil, using a long reed inserted in a small jug positioned upside down or using a holed holding stone with a clay nozzle at the end of the reed. The use of olive oil has been confirmed by the analyses of the burned soil found in the furnaces and in many vases nearby.
To understand how the system worked and calculate how much olive oil was necessary for each operation, a series of archaeological experiments have been made at Pyrgos and in Italy in cooperation with Angelo Bartoli and his team of the Centre of Experimental Archaeology "Antiquitates" of Blera. The furnaces have been reconstructed with the similar material, respecting dimension, and position of the bellows, connected with simple reeds covered by mud. Moreover, a small jug broken at the base has been embedded at the top of the oven, and used to drop the olive oil in the furnace using a long reed, which leaves the operator to stay far from the fire.
The experiments show that the system worked perfectly, and, regarding the use of olive oil as fuel, it is possible (after starting the fire with small pieces of dry wood) that olive oil was employed to reach and maintain the temperature to smelt or melt the metal. Normally 5 litres of oil are enough for a furnace of thirty cm in diameter (and a temperature of 1100 degrees). However, it is possible to reach a temperature of 1300 degrees with less (temperatures monitored with a thermocouple of chrome, aluminium) as demonstrated by a later proves made by Dr Livio Pontieri with a group of students coming from the Istituto Orientale di Napoli in 2010 (Fig. 17).
Fig.17: Livio Pontieri furnace working with olive oil: experimental season at Pyrgos in 2010.
The first laboratory analyses and the smelting experiments (made using the waste remains of the ores found around the furnaces) gave the following results:1) The ores come probably from Mavrorachi outcrops, as their mineral composition (in order of percentage of copper, iron, tin, arsenic, zinc, nickel and antimony) are very similar to the lumps of chrysocolle and malachite recovered on the slopes of Mavrorachi.
2) The powdered ores smelted at 900 degrees to produce a slag that includes many copper prills.
3) This slag smelted a second time produces a small quantity of copper and soft matrix rich in spherical copper inclusions that it is easy to recover crushing the lumps. At the end of the process, it is possible to obtain from 420 grams of ores 150 grams of slag and 30 grams of copper.
4) The slag found in the excavations (1500 lumps delivered to the Limassol Museum) have the same composition of the ores, and contain still a high percentage of copper. They are as hard as the slag product obtained after the first smelting in our experiments and melt at a low temperature, around 950 degrees.
5) A piece of slag (110 grams, officially exported in 2006) smelt in a crucible gives a second product of 30 grams consisting in a soft matrix slag imprisoning spherical drops of copper, like the second slag produced by our experiments, as easy to crush to collect the copper as the ores.
This does not demonstrate that the copper used at Pyrgos was smelted directly inside the industrial complex as the absence of large vast material suggests.
Anvil lithic packet.
The working stations set up with furnaces, benches and stone tools have been recovered in an abandoned state, as if something had suddenly forced people to leave. Some implements offer, the possibility to reconstruct the process of the making of bronze axes and knives, as well as other items refined by hammering.
The most functional objects found on these stations are the stone tools, mainly shaped by the user. Currently Pyrgos is the first Cypriot metallurgical site, which returned a complete set of these instruments.
The lithic repertoire does not differ greatly from the Neolithic period, apart from a new implement, the anvil, which we find in connection with the final hammering and refining of the metal objects. Axes and adzes are the elective tools often recycled from a previous use.
The appointive use was the cutting of the metal burbs after the casting, and the hammering of the blades before the final sharpening. The hammers are few in comparison with stone axes. For the sharpening, it was invented a new type of whetstone consisting of a curated bar perforated at one extremity. For this latter, there are close comparisons in the kit of Tomb 21 of Pyrgos believed to belong to a blacksmith of the Middle Bronze age.
Different from the Neolithic anvils used for breaking stone nuclei and chipping flints, the Coppersmith anvils of Pyrgos has a completely different texture and shape. The elective material is basalt and Gabbro, volcanic stones resistant to high temperatures (melt over 1450 °C while granite melts at 600-700 °C), largely present on territory in the form of large pebbles or boulders, often smoothed by atmospheric agents.
The shape of the anvil is usually a rectangular prism, the surface carefully smoothed for not leaving streaks and imprints on metal objects, during the working. Their shape is different according the use. For this reason, we have divided the repertoire in six typologies.
1
- Portable anvil
(n°1462, kg 2,300) obtained from a basalt pebble. It is an irregular frusto-pyramidal hexahedron, with four working faces, completely smoothed and rounded (Fig. 19)
Fig.19: Portable anvil, Inv. n. 1462.
2
- Portable horn handled anvil
(n°1543, kg 1,010) for jewellery or small items, it has a complex and articulate shape. A sturdy oblique foot extends below the rear end, squared in section, with a concave stop underneath the face, which makes possible to insert the object in a support (Fig. 20). The face has both the ends squared, tapering towards the tip, which has the left side slightly longer.
The anvil was sharpened to facilitate "the transverse volar-grip" of the left hand. The left side on top of the handle has a notch to accommodate the thumb and its carpal. The right side has an underneath recess for the other fingers, specifically made according to the imprints left by the hammering (cm. 9.5 x 14.8 x 6.2 + face 10 x 6> 4).(Fig.20)
Fig. 20: Portable horn handled anvil, Inv.n.1543.
3
- Two types of slab anvil:
a) Flat slab anvil
(n°1517, kg 9, 00) with a sort of step on one side to support the wrist or tools (Fig.21). The molten alloy was directly poured on it to obtain a rough bar or sheet, then finished by hammering on the proper anvil (cm 26 x 21 x 6, 7 + cm 11, 38 x 10, 3 x 21).(Fig.21)
Fig. 21: Flat slab anvil, Inv. n. 1517.
b) Flat, squared anvil
(n°3056 kg 1,997), rectangular, almost regular shape with double working faces. The type is very common in Early-Middle Bronze Age Spanish metallurgy (15 x 12-10, 7 x 5, 8).(Fig.22)
Fig. 22: Flat squared anvil, Inv. n.3056.
4. Multifunctional anvil
(n°409 kg 8, 00). It has a triangular prismatic shape, obtained from a rough triangular block cut and shaped into art (Fig. 23).
It has five usable sides: two triangular faces (A and B) on the wide sides and three rectangular faces (C, D, and E) on the minor's sides. Each side shows several traces of use (cm. 23 x 23 x 20). Comparison with an anvil from La Bastida Spain of the faces A and B the hammering left a central rounded convexity. Face C has a deep and precise transverse groove (3 mm deep, at 9 cm from the one end).
The opposite end bends on the left side with a sort of short rounded horn. On both sides of the groove there is a convexity formed by the hammering, its extension corresponding to 3 cm to one side and 4 cm on the other. The groove and the lateral imprints, match to the shape and dimension of the sword/knives of the Early-Middle Bronze age with rib reinforcement. Face E has an extremely smooth surface on which it is possible to note the characteristic striations left after the burnishing of metal sheets.
Fig. 23: Multifunctional anvil, Inv. n. 409.
5 - Bench anvil
(n°87 kg. 6).
Rectangular parallelepiped, with four working faces (Fig. 24).
On the surface are well visible the extensive imprints left by the burnishing and hammering of metal objects (cm 22 x 11 x 12). It was found on the bench in front of the two furnaces containing each a clay mould for axes left in the heat. It was part of a peculiar set including half basalt quern shaped on side to host the anvil forming a multifunctional table to work the metal. It has an interesting comparison with an anvil of the same period, found in a
Coppersmith tomb in Spain containing a clay mould for axe too (T. n°3 Fuente Alamo, Argaric culture EBA). This circumstance suggests that this type of anvil was commonly used to refine the axes.
Fig. 24: Bench anvil, Inv. n. 87.
6 - Self standing anvil
(n°188 kg 20,00).(Fig.25-26)
The instrument is obtained from a huge block of basalt. It has a great stability due to the masterful workmanship (Fig. 25). The surface has been carefully hammered and smoothed except the base left rough. The top face is professionally worked to improve functionality. It has a rounded, pointed extremity, meanwhile the opposite ends with a step immediately after a deep groove, where it was possible to locate the rib of swords and knives during the sharpening of the blades (cm37 x 27,46 x12; face cm 21x10,74).
The simple squared types 1, 3b, 4, 5 have strong comparisons with some smaller contemporary Spanish anvils, with any groove.
After 4000 years, the comparison with the modern standard anvil shows the evolution of 3 key elements, which we find in embryonic form in type 4° (n°409) and 6° (n°188).
a- The face, which is the main flat surface, where most of the hammering takes place.
b- The horn on the "front" end of the anvil, which allows the smith to hammer
different curves into the piece he is working on.
c- The step just below the face, whose edge is used to "cut" pieces while hammering.
Regarding the groove for the accommodation of the rib during the hammering, we found in France nice comparisons, which indicate that until a recent past this facility was well known.
Meanwhile, one portable anvil, available on the market, seems the perfect copy of the horn handled anvil n°1543. Considering these elements, Jock Dempsey affirms that an anvil has a face, heel, body, waist and feet as well as biological symmetry. The horn, which developed over time to a stylized yet organic looking rhinoceros horn is often considered a phallic device, but could also be recognizably albeit distractedly female, if we consider the cutting in the middle. This increases the visual identity of the anvil and reminds us that in central Africa the anvil is the "Mother" and the hammer the "Father" .
Other peculiar classes of metallurgical tools are the emery stones and burnishers for smoothing the metal plates are recognizable from the pyramidal shape and the characteristic base.
Fig. 25: Self standing anvil, Inv.n.188.
Fig. 26: Particular of deep groove and the step just below.
People involved.
To summarise the dimensions of the rooms devoted to metallurgical activities (in the limits of the area excavated) we have an extension of 600 square metres, which suggests that a considerable number of people were engaged in the processing of the copper. In addition to these activities, we have to consider the number of the people engaged in the exploiting of the copper ores and in the transportation to the factory.
Assuming that the mineral came from Mavrorachi, the distance was irrelevant, but if we consider the possibility that the outcrops exploited were as far as the mines of Mazokampos (6-7 kilometres North) or Kalavassos (25 kilometres North East), we have to calculate the engagement of more people. Moreover, the whole procedure required other people appointed in procuring and preparing food for metallurgists. The scenario is quite unforeseen for the current reconstructions of the Early-Middle Bronze Age society, as the direction and the organisation of such number of people should require more than a patriarchal control to run.
Moreover, it is not possible to estimate what relationships were among women and men in the organisation of the copper line processing, even if the evidence found in the excavations suggests that at Pyrgos the copper processing was not an exclusive male job. In particular, numerous spindle whorls have been found in the metallurgical area, near the working places and the furnaces, suggesting that the women normally frequented the place.
In addition, at Pyrgos we do not have evidence of a coppersmith workshop organised by a master with his own team, but evidence of a group of people working simultaneously on different correlated activities. Considering the possibility of women employed in the copper processing. I would like to point out that until recently women were normally engaged in the smelting process of the metals, employed especially in the choosing of the pieces of minerals after the crashing and in recuperating the drops of metal after the smelting . Moreover, assuming that the spinning was an exclusively female art and using the presence of the spindle whorls as "fossil index", we can presume that at Pyrgos the women had some roles in the metallurgical industry.
M.R.Belgiorno,2017, "Patterns of Metallurgy activity", Archaeometry and Aphrodite, 18-28, Nicosia ISBN 978.9963.2448.0.5
PYRGOS/MAVRORAKI COPPER METALLURGY I
- Chalcolithic to Middle Bronze II. from mine to mould
- The Metalsmith Tomb n.21
by
Maria Rosaria Belgiorno
Livio Pontieri
Cyprus' copper wealth and high quality minerals led to its identification as the Roman term cuprum (Kypros). However, evidence of copper processing is scarce before the Chalcolithic- Early Bronze age, therefore, the documentation presented in Scripta Cypria III sheds new light on the beginning of Cypriot metallurgy, which was a fundamental element in the evolution of maritime trade on the island.
Other contemporary metallurgical sites in the Mediterranean, including Cyprus, are equally rich in copper but do not have the level of productive continuity of Pyrgos/Mavroraki, as according to the 14C the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic site continued to be inhabited until the end of the Middle Bronze age, when it was destroyed by an earthquake.
The materials that identify Pyrgos/Mavroraki as a copper worker community represent all the production phases, from copper extraction to the finishing of the artefacts, in a 4000-year time span of technology evolution. Alongside the few copper objects that survived to the earthquake, complete processing plants, infrastructure, stone tools, slags and processing waste of various kinds have been found in different occupancy levels that were not continuously used in metallurgy.
Alongside the working points, the fragments of crucibles and moulds, nozzles, bellows supports, and a vast lithic apparatus, including shaped anvils and mining tools for extracting minerals that shed new light on the ancient techniques have been found. Currently Pyrgos/Mavroraki seems to be the only settlement directly insisting on rocks containing copper oxides and sulphides which suggests a continuity of human habitation from the Preceramic Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.
However, the slags of Pyrgos/Mavroraki offer many additional data about the Mediterranean copper production from the Chalcolithic until the Middle Bronze age, encompassing the most important period of the birth and evolution of metallurgy.
The presence of slags until the bedrock made it necessary to carry out 14C dating of the charcoal taken from within the slags which gave four different calibrated datations: 8631-8291 BC, 4229-3960 BC, 2201-1948 BC, and 1937-1738 BC, demonstrating the ininterrupted activity of the site in copper processing.
Tomb 21 of Pyrgos, with its rich equipment, is one of the few European Early-Middle Bronze age metalsmith tombs, perfectly fitting into the industrial context with its repertoire of 13 bronzes and stone tools beyond any comparison in terms of size.
The existence of this ancient copper mining and processing site in Cyprus is of historical significance, as it testify that the island has been perfectly capable of cultivating its deposits of minerals and extracting the metals since the beginning of the Chalcolithic period.
