The first metal to be exploited in Egypt, as elsewhere in tire ancient world, was copper, the earliest surviving examples of which are small artefacts such as beads and borers of the Badarian period (r.5500-4000 Bc). By the late PREDYNASTic PERIOD, howcvcr, large items, such as axe - and adze-heads, were being produced, and the knowledge of copper-smelting and working was already highly developed. It has been suggested that the important late Prcdvnastic settlement of MAADi, in Lower Egypt, may have prospered on the basis of its role as intermediary between the sources of copper in Sinai and the Levant and the Upper Egyptian ‘proto-states’ whose growth and competition produced a demand for metal tools and weapons.
Copper was mined at various localities in the Eastern Desert, Nubia and the Sinai peninsula (such as Wadi Maghara) from at least the early Old Kingdom. The excavation of the Early Dvnastic phase of the Egvptian fortress at buiiex, near the third Nile cataract, revealed traces of copper-smelting, indicating that mining was one of the earliest reasons for the Egvptian presence in Nubia.
The technology of copper-smelting in the Old and Middle Kingdoms (2686-1650 bc) involved the use of crucibles and reed blowpipes. The I'AT. F.RMO. S'l'OM': states that copper statues were already being created in the 2nd Dynasty (2890-2686 bc), and the most spectacular surviving examples of copper-working from the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 Bt;) are the life-size statue of the 6th-Dynasty pharaoh I’lLi’Y I and another smaller figure possibly representing his son Merenra, both in the Cairo Museum. These were probably produced by hammering the metal over a wooden core.
The production of bronze, an alloy combining copper and tin, appears to have spread from Western Asia. Among the first known bronze artefacts in Egypt are a pair of ritual vessels from the tomb of the 2nd-Dynasty ruler kiia. sekiiemwy at abvdo. s. It was not until the Middle Kingdom that bronze began to be imported regularly from Syria, gradually replacing the use of copper hardened with arsenic. However, the percentage of tin varied considerably, from about 2 to 16 per cent. Tin lowers the melt ing point of copper, thus increasing its liquidity for casting. Additions of up to 4 per cent make the artefact stronger and harder, but higher levels of tin impair these qualities, unless the artefact is frequently annealed (reheated and allowed to cool).
In the New Kingdom a form of bellows, consisting of a leather-covered clay vessel with a protruding tube, was introduced, making the smelting of copper and bronze easier. From the Saitc period (664-525 bc) onwards, large numbers of votive statuettes of deities were cast in bronze using the lost-wax {cire perdue) process, w'hich had been knowm since at least the Old Kingdom. Larger objects could be cast around a core, rather than being made from solid bronze, thus saving valuable metal.
H.. IJji'AH, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries, 4th ed., rev. J. R. Harris (London,
1962), 199-223.
A. RjVDWAX, Die Kupfer - und Bronzegejasse Agyptens: von den Anfdngen his zum Begum der Spdizeit (Munich, 1983).
M. Cow El. L, ‘The composition of Egyptian copper-based metalwork’. Science in Egyptology, cd. A. R. David (Manchester, 1986), 463-8.
M. A. Le. aha', ‘Egypt as a bronzeworking centre (1000-539 Bt;)’, Bronze-working centres of Western Asia, ed. J. Curtis (London, 1988), 297-310.
World History
