All about IAMS
Since Man first learned to turn a piece of rock into metal, which was a decisive turning point in the technological and intellectual history of Man, this new material became one of the most dominant active parameters in wide-ranging historical developments, often even their direct cause. IAMS therefore initiated systematic research projects in major centres of ancient mining and metal production which have made seminal contributions to the understanding of the ancient metallurgical technologies and their history.
After many years of research into 'Man made metal', it has become imperative to look also into the socio-economical, socio-structural as well as cultural and cultic meaning of metal. Of considerable significance is the study of the effect of new technologies on societies, based on the study of the gradual, but socially revolutionary change-over from early 'cottage industry' smelting of metal to established craft specialization and on to well-organized, large scale industries of geopolitical significance.
Archaeo-metallurgy and the study of the ancient international metal trade also promotes a better understanding not only of the leading role of metal in the spread of technological knowledge, but also of its dominant role in the spread and promotion of intellectual ideas, rituals and cults. Metal was not only a formative historical parameter in the socio-economical and geopolitical sense, but also a vital carrier of cultural interactions on a world wide scale, best characterized as 'Metal made Man'.
IAMS is affiliated to the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL) and associated with the Wolfson Laboratory for Archaeological Science, UCL Centre for Materials Research. The active research of IAMS, and its teaching programme, is undertaken by the members of its Scientific Committee and Research Associates, forming a unique group of highly qualified specialists from UCL and the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London, as well as from educational and technological institutions of world repute in other countries. It is thus actively supported by the collaboration in research and teaching of experts from a wide range of disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology and history, as well as metallurgy and chemistry, geology and mining engineering.
IAMS carries out its own systematic, comprehensive archaeo-metallurgical research projects but also provides archaeo-metallurgical expertise as active partner in archaeological field research and laboratory investigations undertaken by academic institutions in many parts of the world. One of its major aims is the dissemination of archaeo-metallurgical knowledge through teaching archaeo-metallurgy at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate level. This unique course is attended by students from countries all over the world, many of which, after obtaining their MSc and PhD degree, are now actively involved in research and teaching archaeo-metallurgy in their home countries.
The results of the research, field work and laboratory investigations by members of IAMS have been published in numerous scientific papers and books. IAMS publishes much of its work in the series Metal in History and 'archaeometallurgy - monographs', and also publishes the annual journal 'iams'.
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The Birth of Archaeo-metallurgy in the Southern Negev |
Archaeo-metallurgy - the systematic study of the origins and development of mining and mineral processing from the earliest times - has emerged as a science only within the past thirty years and has now become a highly complex area of the pursuit of knowledge. Modern archaeo-metallurgy was born in the slag heaps of Timna in the Arabah Valley of the southern Negev, where the first ever systematic excavation of smelting sites and slag heaps took place. Why there you may well ask ? The answer lies in a Biblical puzzle - where were 'King Solomon's Mines' ?
The Arabah Valley runs between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. The story of 'King Solomon's Mines' (which has nothing to do with Rider Haggard’s famous novel of the same name) began with explorations in the late 1930s and early '40s by Nelson Glueck. He published about large scale copper mining and smelting works in the Arabah Valley and excavated an ancient site on the Red Sea coast which he identified as the Biblical Ezion-Geber, Solomon's port, with huge copper smelting installation. Glueck called it 'the Pittsburgh of the Middle East'. The fabulous story of King Solomon's mining enterprises became a major chapter in Biblical Archaeology; it was received with great enthusiasm by the scientific world and historians, and has subsequently appeared in most textbooks of ancient history
However, 'King Solomon's Mines' had not yet been identified in the field - not least because there is no actual mention in the Bible of King Solomon having had any copper mines. There were still far too many questions unanswered. Beno Rothenberg was puzzled by the slag heaps at Timna because, contrary to what Glueck had written that there was only 'roasting' of copper ores (sometimes the first stage of smelting), near the mines, here the slag looked like proper smelting slag with lots of metallic copper lumps entrapped in it, which does not happen in the roasting process. Also, there was no need to roast the ore at Timna because it was oxidized ore; roasting is needed only for sulphidic ores.
Beno Rothenberg therefore formed the Arabah Expedition to explore systematically the Timna Valley and the surrounding areas. Twelve smelting camps with slag heaps were found and extensive mines that were set along some ten kilometres of the white sandstone cliffs. Rothenberg's arguments, based firmly on the new investigations and finds, ran into great opposition because the story of 'King Solomon's Mines' was now too firmly entrenched in scientific literature, Biblical archaeology and historical textbooks.
For five years, from 1964 to 1969, Rothenberg excavated sites which, according to the pottery evidence, were dated to different periods - beginning with a Chalcolithic smelter of the 5th millennium BC, where the then earliest known copper smelting furnace, simply a heavily slagged hole in the ground, was found.
The dating of the twelve major smelting camps that the Expedition located was a matter of debate since the pottery found there was rather unusual and had few comparisons. For several years the Expedition had searched, almost desperately, for some clear archaeological evidence of the Solomonic period, but that evidence was never found.
The questions were, therefore, when were these installations built, who had built them and who actually mined the copper ? Were they the Israelites, or local people and, if not, who else had gone there to set up such huge mining and smelting enterprises?
The nature of the smelting installations found in the excavations ranged from a simple hole in the ground using primitive bellows (probably made from animal skins), to rather complicated and sophisticated stone-built furnaces, cupola-type furnaces with pre-manufactured bellows tubes (tuyeres) going into the furnace to regulate its ventilation and proper furnace operation which produced an almost modern looking slag that had been tapped out of the furnace at the completion of the process.
The dates of these installations ranged through almost every period from the Chalcolithic (5th millennium BC) to medieval Islamic times and their study has been the main objective of subsequent systematic archaeo-metallurgical studies carried out for many years by IAMS. This was subsequently finalized through experimental archaeology, carried out in the laboratories of RTZ and at a smelting site in Timna itself, which has changed many of the concepts regarding early metallurgy. It culminated in the formulation of the first mathematical model of the ancient copper smelting process. The archaeological as well as metallurgical evidence was published in The Ancient Metallurgy of Copper (IAMS London 1990)
The systematic work carried out at Timna by the Arabah Expedition and IAMS has inspired, indeed virtually created, modern archaeo-metallurgical studies which are now spreading worldwide, recognized as a new and distinct branch of scientific archaeological research.
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The Discovery of the Egyptian Mining Temple at Timna |
What, therefore, was the position regarding King Solomon? Archaeologically, no remains of the Solomonic period have ever been found in the Arabah. The question obviously became acute - who had actually been responsible for the huge early historical mine workings and smelters found in the Timna Valley ? The answer was found rather unexpectedly in 1969 when Beno Rothenberg investigated a small heap of sand under a cliff overhang right in the centre of the Timna smelting area. To everybody's great astonishment, on the first day of the investigation, an exciting hoard of Egyptian jewelry, metal objects and pottery was found. The site turned out to be a small temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, where the Egyptians, together with the local tribes which included Midianites from north-western Arabia, worshipped the goddess. Here her function was that of the protective goddess of the large-scale copper workings in the Timna Valley.
Fortunately, it was easy to date this temple because of the votive gifts found in it; many, of Egyptian faience, carried inscriptions and the cartouches of New Kingdom pharaohs. It then became clear that the Timna mines and smelters were an Egyptian New Kingdom enterprise, starting in the late fourteenth century BC and continuing into the mid-twelfth. Here, at last, was good evidence to identify this enterprise with the Egyptian site of Atika, mentioned in a papyrus of Ramesses III (1198-1166 BC) as a major source of copper for the Egyptian pharaohs.
The dating problem was solved, but it had totally changed the historical and cultural concepts of the area and, not least, the ethnic relationship of these workings and the technologies of the Egyptians. One of the most exciting points that emerged was the collaboration between Egyptians and Midianites, the latter well known from the early beginnings of Israelite history. Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, was a High Priest of Midian and closely concerned with the development of the early tribal structure of the Israelites. Here at Timna was the first evidence ever found of a Midianite culture - highly sophisticated and with beautifully decorated ceramics and metal-working. It was a very exciting discovery because Rothenberg was now dealing, not with the period of Solomon, but with an earlier stage of the Israelite story during the Exodus - in fact, the beginning of the nation of Israel. In the Midianite levels of the temple, a votive 'brazen serpent' was found in the sanctuary. The Egyptian shrine had been totally changed into a tented shrine, reminiscent of the tabernacle of the Bible.
A new phase in the history of metal had been revealed. The Egyptians of the New Kingdom had controlled the area of Palestine but had withdrawn in the mid-twelfth century BC, probably under pressure from the incoming Philistines on the one side and the Israelites on the other. At Timna the evidence emerged for a new factual base for history, not only technical history but also the cultural and political history of the southern part of the Land of Israel.
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- | Timna in the British Museum |
Soon after the news of the discovery of the Egyptian mining temple at Timna spread, Beno Rothenberg was invited to give a series of lectures in London and, as a result of this, was invited to exhibit his discoveries in the British Museum in 1971. This exhibition showed the mining temple and finds and, for the first time ever, there was an actual ancient smelting furnace as found, transferred bodily to London - something which created world-wide interest. The Timna exhibition was subsequently shown in museums in England in Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle, and in Germany at Bochum, Munich and Hanover. Today it is on permanent display at the Eretz-Israel Museum at Tel Aviv.
Whilst the exhibition was at the British Museum, Rothenberg was approached by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, at the time Secretary of the British Academy, and Sir Val Duncan, Chairman of Rio Tinto Zinc Co., with the idea of setting up a London-based international group to follow up the work and widen its sphere from the Middle East into Europe. The Institute for Archaeo-Metallurgical Studies (IAMS) was founded in 1973 and since then has developed into a teaching and research institute, based at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. It was through this affiliation and the new research facilities, as well as the long-term generous support of the Volkswagen Foundation of Germany, RTZ, British, German and American metal companies and several of the private merchant members of the London Metal Exchange (LME) that the Timna research programme could be followed through in great depth from a series of large-scale excavations in the Timna mines and smelters in 1974 to 1990, to experimental archaeology as well as into modern mathematical modeling of processes and installations. Due to this systematic, long-range research, Timna has become a world-wide textbook for early copper metallurgy.
Rio Tinto
Excavations led by Professor Beno Rothenberg in the mines of Rio Tinto, south-west Spain, became the second major research project of IAMS. The investigation of Rio Tinto has presented an astonishing picture of large-scale silver mining and sophisticated smelting from the European Middle Bronze Age of the second millennium BC onwards. The scale of the operation was immense - the processing of silver ore has left millions of tons of lead-silver slag that rises in mounds to a height of twenty metres and more. Located in the middle of this there is an astonishing layer of Phoenician material with Phoenician-influenced pottery and imported material. There is a definite connection with the Biblical story (Ezekiel 27:12) about Tarshish and the huge Phoenician metal trade during the 8th-6th centuries BC. The basic metallurgy does not change from the earlier period, but there are huge differences in scale and efficiency, indicating that at this period the Phoenician trading connections from the Middle East with mining in southern Spain became a major operation of great geopolitical significance.
On the old maps of the Rio Tinto region 'cuevas', large caves, are marked. Local legends say that the source of the undrinkable acidic, red-tinged (by the ores) water of the Rio Tinto is one of these caves. The IAMS survey found an enormous underground cave, actually an early silver mine, and excavations revealed Roman remains that included complete mining lamps, tools and heaps of fairly rich silver ore. At Rio Tinto there was not only mainly silver smelting, but also substantial copper production and probably some gold mining. Today's operation is mainly for gold and silver. The modern Rio Tinto mines have been running for over a hundred years and are the oldest mines in existence that are still operating.