Bronze alloy production during the Iron Age of Luristan: a multianalytical study on recently discovered bronze objects Omid Oudbashi & Ata Hasanpour
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences ISSN 1866-9557 Archaeol Anthropol Sci DOI 10.1007/s12520-017-0466-9
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Author's personal copy Archaeol Anthropol Sci DOI 10.1007/s12520-017-0466-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Bronze alloy production during the Iron Age of Luristan: a multianalytical study on recently discovered bronze objects Omid Oudbashi 1 & Ata Hasanpour 2,3
Received: 27 July 2016 / Accepted: 12 January 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Abstract Application of bronze alloy to produce artistic and religious artefacts was commonplace during the Iron Age in western Iran (1500–550 BC). These bronze artefacts are the so-called Luristan bronzes and have been found often from excavated graves and sanctuaries. The aim of this paper is to study on alloy composition and manufacturing process in some recently excavated objects from the Iron Age cemetery of Baba Jilan, northern Luristan. For this purpose, some objects were analysed by quantitative ICP-MS as well as microscopic studies by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and metallography methods. Also, some comparisons were carried out between Baba Jilan and other analysed bronze objects from Luristan in order to identify the metalworking process in bronze objects from the Iron Age of western Iran. The results showed that all Baba Jilan samples are made of binary coppertin alloy. Tin content was variable in the composition of the samples. The variety of tin constituents proved that alloying has been performed by an uncontrolled process to produce bronze. The microscopic studies also showed that the manufacturing operations are similar in the Luristan bronzes. It was carried out to identify probable similarities in the bronze alloy production in the Iron Age of the Luristan region. * Omid Oudbashi
[email protected] Ata Hasanpour
[email protected] 1
Department of Conservation of Historic Properties, Faculty of Conservation, Art University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
2
Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3
Department of Archaeology, Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, Lorestan Province, Khorramabad, Iran
Keywords Archaeometallurgy . Luristan . Bronze alloy . Iron age . Multianalytical study
Introduction The metal objects are important archaeological artefacts that may be discovered in archaeological excavations. Study of composition, manufacturing and metal production in the ancient times can present information about the relationship and trades between regions in the ancient world. In the last decades, analytical studies on ancient metallurgy have progressed significantly in the literature. These studies are focused on metal production processes and manufacturing of objects in the ancient times as well as metal resources used to produce different raw materials in different regions (Roberts and Thornton 2014; Rehren and Pernicka 2008; Hauptmann 2007; Artioli 2012). Iran is one of the important regions in the Near East in the field of ancient metallurgy. The Luristan is a highland region in the central Zagros Mountains of western Iran. This region is bordered by Iraq to the west, Khuzestan (Ancient Elam) to the south, the eastern Zagros Mountains to the east and the Kermanshah region to the north (Muscarella 1988; Overlaet 2004, p 329). Luristan is a very important region in the ancient metallurgy of the Near East. The first evidence of metal use on the Iranian Plateau is in the Deh Luran Plain at the southwest border of Luristan and Khuzestan. It comes from the Neolithic site Ali Kosh (ca. late eight/early seventh millennium BC), where one fragment of a rolled bead of native copper has been found (Thornton 2009). Also, one of the earliest appearances of bronze (Cu-Sn) comes from the early Bronze Age Kalleh Nisar graveyard in Pusht-i Kuh, western Luristan, dated to the late of fourth millennium BC (Pigott 2004). One of the significant archaeological phenomena in Iran is the emergence of a bronze production tradition in Luristan
