Garfinkel Yosef, Klimscha Florian, Shalev Sariel, Rosenberg Danny
Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel.
German Archaeological Institute, Eurasia Department, Berlin, Germany.
PLoS One. 2014 Mar 26;9(3):e92591. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092591. eCollection 2014.
The beginning of metallurgy in the ancient Near East attracts much attention. The southern Levant, with the rich assemblage of copper artifacts from the Nahal Mishmar cave and the unique gold rings of the Nahal Qanah cave, is regarded as a main center of early metallurgy during the second half of the 5th millennium CalBC. However, a recently discovered copper awl from a Middle Chalcolithic burial at Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley, Israel, suggests that cast metal technology was introduced to the region as early as the late 6th millennium CalBC. This paper examines the chemical composition of this item and reviews its context. The results indicate that it was exported from a distant source, probably in the Caucasus, and that the location where it was found is indicative of the social status of the buried individual. This rare finding indicates that metallurgy was first diffused [corrected] to the southern Levant through exchange networks and only centuries later involved local productionThis copper awl, the earliest metal artifact found in the southern Levant, indicates that the elaborate Late Chalcolithic metallurgy developed from a more ancient tradition.
古代近东地区冶金术的起源备受关注。黎凡特南部，拥有来自纳哈尔米什马尔洞穴丰富的铜器组合以及纳哈尔卡纳洞穴独特的金戒指，被视为公元前5000年下半叶早期冶金术的一个主要中心。然而，最近在以色列约旦河谷的特尔察夫一处中铜石并用时代墓葬中发现的一把铜锥表明，铸造金属技术早在公元前6000年末期就已引入该地区。本文研究了这件物品的化学成分并回顾了其背景情况。结果表明它是从遥远的产地运来的，可能来自高加索地区，而且其发现地点表明了被埋葬者的社会地位。这一罕见发现表明，冶金术最初是通过交换网络传播到黎凡特南部的，并且几个世纪后才出现本地生产。这把铜锥是在黎凡特南部发现的最早的金属制品，表明精细的晚铜石并用时代冶金术是从更古老的传统发展而来的。
