Identifying stone tools used in mining, smelting, and casting in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus

Abstract

Metallurgical production sites are often difficult to identify in the archaeological record because ore beneficiation and slag processing in the past involved the use of ground stone tools that were similar to those used in other contexts to prepare cereals and foods. Analysis of the ground stone assemblage from a Middle Bronze Age copper mining and production site at Ambelikou Aletri in Cyprus provided an opportunity to distinguish industrial and domestic ground stone tools and to identify the types of tools used in different stages of metal production. A comparison of tool morphologies, raw materials, and wear and breakage patterns from Ambelikou Aletri with those from contemporary domestic contexts, suggests that distinctions in the nature and structure of industrial and domestic tool kits do exist and those distinctions have an important role to play in identifying mining, smelting, and casting sites in the future.

Keywords:

• ground stone
• mining
• slag processing
• Middle Bronze Age Cyprus
• Ambelikou Aletri
• industrial tool kits

Acknowledgments

The study of the ground stone from Ambelikou Aletri was undertaken with the permission of the Director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. It is a tribute to the staff of the Cyprus Museum that this material, excavated over 70 years ago, could be so readily made available and I thank them for their assistance. The wider task of publishing the excavations at Ambelikou Aletri was accomplished together with David Frankel, to whom I am indebted for his insightful comments on this paper, with the assistance of Robert Merrillees and Anne Dunn-Vaturi. The artifacts were drawn by Kathryn Eriksson and Wei Ming, and prepared for publication by Karen Giofches, Cathy Carigiet, and the author. The artifact photographs were taken by Rudy Frank.

Jennifer Webb (Ph.D. 1988, University of Melbourne) is Charles La Trobe Research Fellow in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. She has co-directed and published a number of excavations in Cyprus. Her research interests include prehistoric households, resource networks, and social hierarchy and the production, consumption, and discard of ceramics and ground stone.