Science. 1982 Apr 2;216(4541):11-9. doi: 10.1126/science.216.4541.11.
Efforts by scientists to locate the sources of copper used in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures through comparative chemical analyses of copper ores and archeological artifacts have largely failed for various mineralogical and metallurgical reasons. The isotopic composition of lead, an element present in a minor amount in many copper ores and bronze objects, is unchanged through metallurgical processes and may in principle be used to determine the sources of the copper used in Bronze Age artifacts. Results suggest that for Late Bronze Age Crete the Laurion region in Attica, Greece, may have been a more important copper source than Cyprus.
科学家们曾试图通过对铜矿和考古文物进行比较化学分析，来定位古代地中海和近东文化中使用的铜的来源，但由于各种矿物学和冶金学方面的原因，这些努力在很大程度上都失败了。铅的同位素组成在许多铜矿和青铜制品中含量较少，但在冶金过程中保持不变，原则上可以用来确定青铜时代制品中使用的铜的来源。研究结果表明，对于青铜时代晚期的克里特岛，希腊阿提卡的劳里翁地区可能是比塞浦路斯更为重要的铜来源地。
