Copper ingots

This paper examines the political economy of the terminal phase (2600 ¬– 2000 BCE) of the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age through a study of characteristic bar-shaped ingots. The focus of the analysis is at the site Khirbat Hamra Ifdan (KHI), which is the best-preserved metal production facility dating to the Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant (Levy et al. 2002). KHI offers a detailed picture of the organization of ingot production during the Early Bronze Age and is used to contextualize bar-shaped ingots found in other locations. Comparing the metrology of the ingots from KHI to ingots found at sites in the Negev Highlands offers important details on the copper trade network. In conjunction, the two datasets highlight a non-centralized political economy that nevertheless was able to develop a long-distance exchange network marketing copper as a commodity intensively for the first time in the region. The analysis highlights that the ingots share a consistent design, but lack metrological consistency associated with currency.

This communication aims to present the information concerning the identification of furniture and know-how originally from eastern Mediterranean in Corsica through Middle Bronze Age (1600-1200 b.C.) and Late Bronze Age (1200-800 b.C.).
In this island, the question of the presence of Aegean elements was, for a long time, associated to a theory involving a foreign-born population, the Sherden, a group mentioned within the famous Sea Peoples. After the abandonment of these historic-factual constructions, the insular archaeological research attached itself to the analysis of the sociocultural character of insular groups from the Bronze Age, without trying to connect them to the cultural dynamics from eastern Mediterranean.
After three decades of scientific introspection, it seems important to propose a postponed inventory on this specific issue. The issue of relations between the Aegean and Near-Eastern areas is documented today by several discoveries, revisions on objects and specific analysis made for fifteen years. In the early 2000s, the first formal testimony of the eastern importation recognized in Corsica is a copper ingot of ox-hide typology and Cypriot origin, found out of context in Sant’Anastasia, in the northeast area of the island. This object, published by F. Lo Schiavo, illustrates the integration at least marginal of Corsica into the Mediterranean networks of metal distribution in the late second millennium. This discovery thereby came to partially fulfill an important gap in research, particularly illustrated by the strong contrast expressed by the number of remains of this type between Corsica and Sardinia. At the same time, the realization of analysis (laser ablation coupled to mass spectrometry) on vitreous furniture unearthed during ancient excavations of the sites of Foce, Tiresa and Filitosa permitted to set the context of production, revealing the near-eastern origin of the materials. 
More recently, the discovery of a set of ornaments in connection in a sepulchral context of the late Middle Bronze at the site of Campu Stefanu (southwest) allowed obtaining of one of the largest repositories for this type of production throughout the western Mediterranean. This necklace is composed by 25 blue-glass beads of Near-Eastern origin, even Egyptian, and of 29 Baltic amber beads of Aegean typology, which show, in addition, a perfect physical, chemical and morphological superposition with isolated beads from contemporary sepulchral contexts of Sardinia. In this context, the formal non-recognition of Helladic crockery in Corsica, while several cases are known and published in Nuragic area, seems to be explained by a delay in research.
Besides these direct testimonies betraying the importation of exotic prestige goods in Corsica between the fourteenth and the twelfth centuries, recent achievements illustrate the existence of technical transfers between the island and the Mycenaean world around the middle and late second millennium. These phenomena are notably materialized by the strong technical and iconographic analogies observed during repoussé work in metal foils. The matrices recognized in Corsica present indeed profound occurrences with those individualized in Greece, as well as the finished objects to which they are attached. Unlike importing exotica and bullion, repoussé metalwork is not known in Sardinia and peninsular Italy during those times, thereby introducing a direct transfer of know-how between these two territories.
Through these few examples, of which we sense a short-term enrichment, we’ll try to measure and explain the integration of different types of remains within the native society, in order to draw the position of the island amongst the networks between the two basins of the Mediterranean.

A rare, scattered resource in Central Africa, copper was produced in the Copperbelt since the 4th?7th centuries CE and traded over large distances from the 9th to the 19th centuries. It was exchanged mainly in the form of cross-shaped ingots, also called croisettes, varying in form and size over time and space. In this article, we explore and compare the spatial distribution of these ingots over time. This approach offers an opportunity to study pre-colonial trade. Indeed, during the 2nd millennium CE, the use of the same type of ingots is attested in distant regions, from the Great Zimbabwe area to the Upemba depression (north Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC]). Over the centuries, changes in geographic distribution patterns and styles indicate shifts in contacts and the appearance of new boundaries. These variations reflect changes in the regional distribution networks and suggest areas of exclusive political influence. Historical information available for the 19th century shows that it is possible to link the diffusion of copper with political entities, a hypothesis supported by evidence related to other kinds of production, such as ceramics and salt. For remote periods, confrontation of the croisettes? distribution with other aspects of material culture suggests that such links between socio-political spaces and copper distribution may also have occurred in the distant past.

Aus Salzburg, Tirol und dem südlichen Bayern sind eine große Zahl prähistorischer Rohkupferfragmente und plankonvexer Kupfergusskuchen bekannt, wovon knapp 300 im Rahmen verschiedener Analyseprojekte in den letzten 15 Jahren chemisch analysiert werden konnten. Im Zuge einer Studie in Salzburg (Salzburger Gusskuchenprojekt) konnte auf Basis von rund 50 plankonvexen Gusskuchen anhand ihrer Form und Größe zudem eine Typologie mit sechs unterschiedlichen Typen und einer groben Chronologie erarbeitet werden. Mittels einer statistischen Auswertung (Clusteranalyse) der chemischen Daten des Gesamtdatenbestands wurden drei Hauptmetallgruppen definiert, wobei die größte Gruppe erwartungsgemäß den Kupferkieserzen der Region entspricht. Plankonvexe Gusskuchen aus Fahlerzkupfer oder Mischkupfer (Kupferkieskupfer mit Anteilen an Fahlerzkupfer) sind hingegen seltener und treten vorwiegend erst ab der Spätbronzezeit auf. Bisherige Analyseergebnisse an Bronzefunden und Erkenntnisse aus prähistorischen Bergbaurevieren belegen ein Wiederauftreten von Fahlerzkupfer ab der Spätbronzezeit, womit auch die an Salzburger Gusskuchen erarbeitete Chronologie der plankonvexen Gusskuchen und den Analysen gut mit dem derzeitigen Gesamtbild übereinstimmt. Zudem wird durch die nun vorliegenden Analyseergebnisse eine genauere Charakterisierung des vorgeschichtlichen Kupfers aus der Region ermöglicht. In der räumlichen Verteilung von Gusskuchen aus Kupferkies und aus Fahlerz zeigen sich deutliche Unterschiede. Während in Salzburg Gusskuchen aus Kupferkieskupfer vorherrschen und Fahlerz nur mit wenigen Gusskuchen belegt ist, sind im Inntal Gusskuchen aus Fahlerzkupfer sehr viel häufiger. Dieses Ergebnis spiegelt die geographische Verteilung der größeren Kupfervorkommen wider, mit den großen Kupferkieslagerstätten in Salzburg und den Fahlerzvorkommen im Inntal. Insgesamt gesehen ist der Anteil an Gusskuchen aus Kupferkieskupfer mit rund 75% mit Abstand am größten, was die Bedeutung der Kupferkieslagerstätten in der Vorgeschichte noch einmal unterstreicht.

A bronze hoard was found with the help of a metal detector in the cadastral area of Lhota u Chroustovic (Pardubice Region, Czech Republic). The find could partly be documented in situ, however, the hoard was heavily disturbed by deep ploughing. Four sickles, a socketed axe and a piece of a bronze ingot date the hoard to HA2 or rather to HB1.