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Metallography for the European Copper Age: Research on the Axe-Blade of the Glacier- Mummy from the Ötztaler Alps in Tyrol

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

Gerhard O. Sperl
Gerhard O. Sperl*
Affiliation:
Universities of Leoben, Innsbruck and Vienna: researcher at the Erich-Schmid Institut für Materialwissenschaft der Österreichischen, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Leoben (retired 2002). Now: Institute for Historical Materials, Leoben, Austria
*
sperl@unileoben.ac.at

Extract

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The beginning of metallurgy in the Old World is characterized by hammering native metals such as gold, copper and meteoric iron. Owing to the need of annealing the metal, for softening it after cold working, pyrometallurgy, the use of fire for producing metals from ores, could have been found by trial and error. Parallel to the rise of metallurgy is the use of a campfire (low temperature: max. 800°C) for baking clay-objects, which also seems to be an additional origin of metallurgy. The very first piece of molten copper-ore, dating back to the 7th millennium BC, was found in Catal Hoyiik, Turkey, together with hammered native copper and beads made of galena (PbS), initially mistakenly thought to be metallic lead.

Type
Research Article
Information
Microscopy Today , Volume 13 , Issue 6 , November 2005 , pp. 8 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2005

References

[1] Sperl, G., Zur Urgeschichte des Bleies; in: Zeitschrift fur Metallkunde, 81 (1990), H.ll, .799–801; On the prehistory of lead, paper prepared for Historical Metallurgy (GB)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Sperl, G., Das Beil vom Hauslabjoch; in: Der Mann im Eis, Band 1, Universitat Innsbruck 1992, S. 454–461 Google Scholar
[3] Sperl, G., Metallurgie des urgeschichtlichen Kupferwesens im Alpenraum; in: BHM 133 (1988), H.ll, S.495–498 Google Scholar
[4] Lutterotti, L., Artioli, G., Dugnani, M., Hansen, T., Pedrotti, A., Sperl, G., "Crystallographic texture analysis of the Iceman and coeval copper axes by non-invasive neutron powder diffraction". In: Die Gletschermumie aus der Kupferzeit 2. Fleckinger A. (ed.), Bozen - Wien: Folio Verlag, 2003. p. 9–22 Google Scholar
[5] Höppner, B., Bartelheim, M.,Hujsmans, M., Krauss, R., MartinekK., -P., Pernicka, E., Schwab, R., Prehistoric Copper Production in the Inn Valley (Austria), and the Earliest Copper in Central Europe; in: Archaeometry, Vol. 47/2(2005) p.293 Google Scholar