Origins of metals for countless bronzes

Abstract

• The proliferation of votive and ritual bronzes during the Late Period would have required a steady supply of metals, in the shape of either bronze scrap or raw materials — not only copper, but also lead, which often formed a high percentage of their alloys. While the use of recycled material in their production remains a possibility, it is not always corroborated through compositional data. With copper and lead remaining essential commodities after the Bronze Age, Egypt’s access to raw materials and the trade in these metals represents a crucial research topic that has been little investigated so far. In addition to a few written sources, recent and ongoing surveys and excavations provide new insights into the exploitation of mines in the Mediterranean world during this period. Scientific analysis finally allows us to determine the origin of the copper and/or lead ores with good probability, as sufficient comparative data from ore deposits of raw copper and lead of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East are now available. Recent compositional and isotopic analyses have been carried out on a wide range of Late Period finds, including the Egyptian metal statuettes on which this paper puts a particular emphasis. The lead isotope analyses (LIA) indicate a variety of imported sources. The samples taken from Egyptian bronze statuettes and other sacred finds are consistent with Laurion in Attica, the northern Aegean and western Anatolia, but also possibly Cyprus, Faynan in the Wadi Arabah, the Sinai Peninsula and Iran. The historical implications of such results are tentatively put forward.