For several decades, the archaeology of the ancient Near East has experienced a significant change in the theories and methodologies of metallurgical research and analysis.
Analytical studies have become materials sciences and, from pyro-technology, which included the processing of ceramics, glass and metals, we have reached the subdivision of the different technologies including archaeometallurgy.
C.S. Smith was one of the precursors of what was considered a new methodological current in the 1980’s; his work made it possible to highlight how the microstructure of the metal artefact preserved the memory of the technology used for its manufacturing, therefore representing a continuum from the mine to the technological processes to which the material was subjected to the creation of the object. The artefact therefore becomes a sort of archaeological and technological archive, the reading of which can be deepened through laboratory analyses.
The first objective of the archaeometallurgical analysis of the object is to establish the manufacturing process, to try to trace the connection between the place of origin of the raw material with which it was produced and the manufacturing phases. The purpose of the physical study of the object is to use the data obtained from the evidence left during the transformation process in which the technology was functional, giving indications of the society in which it was applied.
The study of metal and its processing has had an important increase over time in relation to some regions of the Near and Middle East such as Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.
Attention was therefore turned, thanks to archaeological evidence, to the place of origin and development of metallurgical techniques and to metal, in its significant role as a trade commodity, as a finished product (tools and weapons), as a political and religious symbol, and as an indicator of social status.
As is known, technological changes in the progressive and exponential use of metals are relevant to mark the main transitions in the different ages (Bronze and Iron). The first objects found can still be classified within the range of stone-working techniques, even though the peculiarities of this malleable material when heated were already clear.
During the Neolithic there is already evidence of the use of metallic minerals of simple composition, emerging in deposits, easily identifiable by their brightness and colour, and worked cold or hot, by hammering or annealing.
The Anatolian mountains offered abundant resources and can be considered prodromal in the discovery and first use of metal. The most abundant element among the native ones was copper, and the first artefacts found – small ornamental objects worked cold and hot, in contexts dating back to the end of the 9th-beginning of the 8th millennium BC – come from Çayönü Tepesi, Nevali Cori, sites located in the vicinity of the rich copper mine of Ergani Maden and Aşıklı Hüyük.
Other Late Neolithic settlements have yielded copper artefacts, including simple beads, and more elaborate objects such as the mace head from Can Hasan. In the 7th millennium BC there is evidence for the acquired ability to extract lead from its ores: a lead bracelet was found in Yarim Tepe, while a lead bead comes from Jarmo, the origin of which however is not certain. Another artefact was discovered in Arpachiya and would come from the so-called “Burnt House” investigated by M. Mallowan.
In Çatal Hüyük, central southern Anatolia, a necklace made with lead and limestone beads was found, while various copper and lead slags were unearthed in some settlements in the Iraqi Jezira.
During the Chalcolithic period, the extraction and reduction of metal ore began, mostly in the Anatolian regions, where it is attested in Mersin, but there is also ample evidence of this at the site of Timna, in Palestine. The progressive acquisition of extraction techniques in mining areas goes hand in hand with the diffusion and circulation of metal. In addition to the categories of metal objects, the types of metals used and the processing techniques are expanding as well. The metal trade becomes of significant importance in the network of international relations between the Anatolian and Mesopotamian world in the period of diffusion of the Uruk culture (3500-3000 BC). Finally, the oldest iron artefacts, probably meteoric, found so far can be attributed to the same period, coming from Samarra and Tepe Sialk.
Metal processing appears not to have undergone substantial changes for several millennia, perhaps due to the difficulty of obtaining metal on a larger scale, and the lack of demand for objects produced with this material. In the second half of the 4th millennium BC, a period during which the first centrally organized societies were formed and the elites were the recipients of prestigious goods, a clear new impetus was given to the metallurgical technology of fusion and bronze appeared, the first alloy, of copper and tin.
The use of silver also began, often used to inlay objects in arsenical copper, as in the case of some swords found in one of the ceremonial buildings of Arslantepe-Malatya, an Anatolian site which provides us with the most numerous examples of the production of metal artefacts.
Also in Palestine during the 4th millennium BC, particularly in the southern part, there was an important increase in both quantitative and qualitative metallurgical production among the nomadic and semi-nomadic populations. In the settlements occupied by Ghassulian groups, clues have been found relating to the processing of copper, whose possible origin can be attributed to the mines of Sinai and Wadi Arabah.
In the second half of the 4th millennium BC, in addition to ornamental artefacts, and domestic tools and weapons, more elaborate jewellery and containers were added. Some particularly refined artefacts produced with the new lost-wax technique were also found, such as a wolf’s head in electrum from Tepe Gawra in association with a late Chalcolithic deposition.
From the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, the metallurgical production of pottery and jewellery in precious metals shows a new impulse both in technological and aesthetic-formal characteristics, widely documented by the discovery of important lots of artefacts, coming from the royal necropolis of Ur (Protodynastic IIIA, ca. 2600-2500 BC), from the royal tombs of Alaca Höyük of the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and from the vast metallurgical production of Troy in level II (ca. 2550‒2250 BC).
In this period, the wide circulation of models widespread in the Near East and the probable presence of artisans specialized in the art of metallurgy in the palatine organizations are highlighted. In particular, the increasingly widespread use of bronze is the sign of a vast network of exchanges and control over the supply of materials that are rarer in nature, such as tin.
From the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, there is a lack of archaeological evidence relating to the processing of minerals within the settlements while the discoveries of places where metal was worked by casting, and the presence of melting moulds, crucibles, tuyeres and ingots grow exponentially. An internal organization and diversification therefore develops within the mineralogical and metallurgical activity linked to the differentiation of both the processing and specialization phases.
At the end of the 3rd-beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, the widespread production of bronze work tools, and therefore a wider circulation and widespread use of metal artefacts is particularly significant from a technological and social point of view.
The transition from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BC is marked by new metallurgical techniques and the use of a new metal with different technical characteristics, the iron. It is notable that iron artefacts have been found since the 6th millennium BC, such as a small tool from Samarra, Tomb A or, dated to 5500‒5000 BC, three small globes from Tepe Sialk.
During the 3rd millennium BC, the discoveries of objects made of meteoric iron – and more rarely obtained from extraction processes – increased, as in the case of the tombs of Alaca Höyük where both types of iron were used.
In the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, the use of iron is also attested in the Aegean, in Cyprus and in Crete, although it continues to be very rare. There is a consistent circulation of mostly meteoric iron artefacts, not only of ornamental or ceremonial type, but also for the manufacture of weapons; however, a wider use is evident in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, with the expansion of the commercial borders, which also include the Cyclades, mainland Greece and Sicily.
The importance of the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, expressed by the same terminology used for the first time by Hesiod (end of the 8th-beginning of the 7th century BC) and resumed in the 19th century scansion by technological eras, is marked by some technological innovations which had clear consequences from a socio-economic, political and territorial point of view.
The innovation traditionally assumed is the metallurgy involving iron: from the use of bronze we move onto the increasingly frequent use of this metal, characterized by mechanical characteristics superior to bronze, and by a much more complex process, the slow and progressive diffusion of which starts from the Near East towards Europe.
During the Late Bronze Age there were the first experiments not only in the processing of meteoric iron, but also of iron smelting, attested above all in the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean, extracted from iron ore and conditioned on the knowledge of technical procedures and complex equipment.
The palatine bronze workshops and inter-regional trade for the import of copper and tin, and bronze metallurgy in general, continued until the crisis of the 12th century BC.
However, metallurgists specialized and gradually refined the technique for the more complex working of iron; the reason for the progressive replacement of this metal with bronze, an alloy whose full potential was now known, continues to be an open and debated problem.
One of the main hypotheses is closely linked to the possibility of finding iron minerals in abundance on the earth’s crust, and therefore in the Near East, as opposed to tin and copper deposits located to the east and north-west of Mesopotamia. The other aspect to be evaluated is linked to the growing demand for tin and copper by the great near-eastern kingdoms, dependent on the trade of these essential components, which around the 12th century BC, due to a profound crisis triggered by multiple causes that had marked the Late Bronze Age with progressive intensity, they are starting to be difficult to find. With iron, the most useful metal in military contexts, it was possible to produce weapons that were not only superior in resistance to bronze ones, but also cheaper.
The possession and processing of metals was a strategic asset, the greater availability of iron may have allowed an exchange of technical information and the possibility of greater regional autonomy in the use of this good. For a long period, bronze and iron coexisted until the definitive supremacy of the latter over the former, with which the majority of artefacts discovered from the Iron Age onwards were made.
