AJA Open Access
BY-NC-NDApril 2010 (114.2)
Forum Article
A Chalcolithic Error: Rebuttal to Amzallag 2009
By Christopher P. Thornton, Jonathan Golden, David Killick, Vincent C. Pigott, Thilo Rehren and Benjamin Roberts
In the October 2009 issue of the AJA, Amzallag published a hypothesis for the origins and spread of furnace-based metallurgy in the Old World (“From Metallurgy to Bronze Age Civilizations: The Synthetic Theory,” AJA [2009] 497–519). Amzallag’s paper is rife with misunderstandings of both an archaeological and a technical nature, leading to a skewed vision of early metallurgical development. In this rebuttal, we seek to correct some of the more egregious errors in his article and provide a counterargument for the origins of copper-based metallurgy in the Old World.
See Also
New Kingdom crucible from Qantir/Pi-Ramesse in the eastern Nile Delta, showing the slagged interior surface of the crucible and the relatively untouched exterior surface (Frame 2009, 606; courtesy L. Frame).
More articles like this:
Bronze Age • Archaeological Science • Prehistory • Metallurgy/Metalworking • Near East
New Kingdom crucible from Qantir/Pi-Ramesse in the eastern Nile Delta, showing the slagged interior surface of the crucible and the relatively untouched exterior surface (Frame 2009, 606; courtesy L. Frame).