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The Archaeological Evidence for Metallurgy and Related Technologies in Mesopotamia, c. 5500–2100 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

P. R. S. Moorey
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Extract

In the remarkable expansion of archaeometallurgical studies in the last fifteen or twenty years Mesopotamia, where much pioneer work was done fifty years ago, has steadily slipped from view. This is in marked contrast to the time when Woolley's discoveries in the “Royal Cemetery” at Ur gave the Sumerians an assured place in general studies of early metallurgy. As research priorities in archaeometallurgy in the Near East moved to the investigation of the primary processes of metal exploitation and the development of support technologies, the source zones of Anatolia, of the Negev and Sinai, and of Iran inevitably eclipsed a region which had always been an importer of metals, to a greater or lesser degree already processed. This excluded Mesopotamia from a role as innovator in the basic techniques of metal recovery, and also probably in pioneering the skills of smelting and of alloying copper. Nor, for the same reasons, has Mesopotamia been drawn into the lively debate about the relative significance of external forces and internal transformation mechanisms in the development of metallurgy in prehistoric Europe, for which the primary eastern point of reference was Anatolia. But the certain fact that Mesopotamia had to import all her metal has kept metallurgy among the factors considered in current debates over explanatory models for the emergence of a complex society there in the later fourth and earlier third millennium B.C., some-times giving rise to conclusions hard to reconcile with the sparse archaeological record.

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Research Article
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IRAQ , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , Spring 1982 , pp. 13 - 38
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Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1982

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155 Deshayes, J., Les outils de bronze de l'Indus au Danube (IVe au IIe millénaire) (Paris, 1960), II, 178, 411Google Scholar. The history of metalworking in Iran shows many strong local traditions not yet comprehensively surveyed, except in the relatively narrow range of this book; see, in general, Moorey, P. R. S., Iran 20 (1982), in pressGoogle Scholar.

156 Maxwell-Hyslop, K. R., Western Asiatic Jewellery c. 3000–612 B.C., 36–7Google Scholar.

157 Limet, H., JESHO 15 (1972), 3–24Google Scholar; for the Ur Sargonid graves see Nissen, H. J., Zur Datierung des Königsfriedhofes von Ur (Bonn, 1966)Google Scholar.

158 Thompson, R. C., LAAA 19 (1932), 72Google Scholar: original discovery in what seems to be a late seventh century B.C. context. I am most grateful to Professor Carl Nylander for discussing this head with me, showing me detailed photographs taken during a recent exhibition of it in Europe and telling me of a recent analysis; see Nylander, C., AJA 84 (1980), 329 ffGoogle Scholar.

159 Musée de l'Ermitage, trav. du département oriental IV (Leningrad, 1947), 117–8 (English summary)Google Scholar; see also Porada, E., Ancient Iran (London, 1965), 62, Fig. 38, n. 34Google Scholar for later dating. Pope, A. U., A Survey of Persian Art (Oxford, 1939), IV, Pl. 105, 106Google Scholar: Metropolitan Museum, New York 47.100.80. I am grateful to Dr. Pieter Meyers for information on an analysis done by a commercial laboratory in 1951; the head is 34·3 cm high. The original source is unknown: Muscarella, O. in Schmandt-Besserat, D. (ed.), Ancient Persia: The Art of an Empire (Undena Publications 1979), 34–5Google Scholar.

160 A. U. Pope, op. cit., Pl. 107 (14·7 cm high).

161 Al-Fouadi, A. H., Sumer 32 (1976), 63 ff.Google Scholar; Madhloom, T., Sumer 32 (1976), 41 ff. (Arabic)Google Scholar; Raschid, F., Sumer 32 (1976), 49 ff. (Arabic)Google Scholar; Oates, J., Babylon (London, 1979), Pl. 17Google Scholar.

162 Reade, J., Iraq 30 (1968), 244–5, 249Google Scholar; Iraq 33 (1971), 98, Pl. XXVdGoogle Scholar; Iraq 35 (1973), 165, Pl. LXXVd, LXVIIIb, 167, Pl. LXVIIb, LXVIId, left, centreGoogle Scholar; see Parrot, A., Le Temple d'Ishtar (MAM I, Paris, 1956), Pl. LII.1047, p. 121Google Scholar.

163 Thompson, R. C., LAAA 38 (1931), 82Google Scholar; Beck, H. C., Antiquity 5 (1931), 427–37Google Scholar; Ancient Egypt (1934–1935), 69–83Google Scholar; (1935), 19–37; cf. Reade, J., Iraq 35 (1973), Pl. LXVIIbGoogle Scholar.

164 The yellow is particularly interesting; cf. a frog amulet of the Ur III to Isin-Larsa period from Telloh glazed yellow: de Genouillac, , Fouilles de Telloh I (1930), 182, 185Google Scholar; II (1936), 107, Fig. 4b; both yellow and red pigments are recorded at Tell Asmar, Delougaz, P., The Private Houses …, 235, 244, 247–8Google Scholar.

165 Watelin, L. Ch., Excavations at Kish IV (Paris, 1934), Pl. XXXI. 4–5Google Scholar; Haller, A., Gräber und Grüfte von Assur (Berlin, 1954), 6 ff, Pl. 7 fGoogle Scholar.

166 As possibly Beck, H. C., LAAA 20 (1933), 179–183Google Scholar, from Nineveh IV; Braidwood, R. J., Mounds in the Plain of Antioch (OIP 60, 1960), 341, Fig. 258 (Amuq G)Google Scholar; generally Beck, H. C., Ancient Egypt (1934–1935), 7 ffGoogle Scholar.

167 Starr, R. F. S., Nuzi (Camb., Mass, 1939), 380, 515Google Scholar.

168 Delougaz, P., Private Houses … (Chicago, 1967), 246: As. 31: 671Google Scholar.

169 Garner, H., Iraq 18 (1956), 147 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

170 Brill, R. H., Iraq 40 (1978), 23 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

171 See references in note 15 here.

172 Systematic laboratory study of Mesopotamian faience, frit etc. has only just begun and few results have yet been published.

173 For a general review of the Iranian evidence see Moorey, P. R. S., Iran 20 (1982), in pressCrossRefGoogle Scholar.