Aslihan Yener: Archaeology Brownbag lecture

September 1, 2015

Friday, October 9, Noon
51 Hillhouse, room 101
 
Appropriating Innovations:  Early Bronze Age Tin Mines and Production Sites near Kültepe,
Ancient Kanesh in Turkey

Prof. Dr. K. Aslıhan Yener
Archaeology and the History of Art Department
Koҫ University, Istanbul Turkey,
Retired, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
 
For several decades, there has been a great archaeological debate about the sources of the tin necessary for the manufacture of bronze for the Bronze Age in the Old World, especially the Near East and the Mediterranean. Much textual data from the second millennium BC and many scholars have suggested the only tin sources used to make a tin bronze alloy were imported from exotic lands such as Afghanistan and central Asia. Now an unexpected new source of tin (cassiterite) has been discovered in the foothills of the volcano, Erciyes [Argaeus] in the Kayseri Plain 26 km. south of the site of Kültepe Kanesh and home to a colony of Assyrian traders at Kültepe Kanesh. These findings shift our understanding of bronze production in Anatolia in the third millennium BC and demand a re-evaluation of Assyrian trade routes and the position of Early Bronze Age society in Anatolia within that network. Volcanoes in Turkey have always been associated with obsidian sources, but were not known to be a major source of heavy metals, much less, tin. Analyses of the Hisarcık ores yielded high levels of tin and arsenic, as well as significant traces of manganese and antimony, which are suitable to produce complex copper alloys and with enough tin and arsenic content to produce tin bronzes.  Crucible smelting experiments conducted in 2014 at Kültepe successfully smelted the Hisarcık ores into tin metal prills. Continuing experiments are designed to produce ternary bronzes from these ores.