Abstract
AT a meeting of the Newcomen Society held on March 21, three short papers were read. The first of these, entitled “The Origin of Bronze”, was by Prof. C. H. Desch, who gave an account of the results of the inquiries made for the committee of the British Association appointed to investigate the sources of the copper used by the Sumerians. Many specimens of objects found recently. at Ur, Kish, Tell Asmar and other places have been analysed, and earlier analyses have been critically examined. A striking discovery is that true bronzes were made at a very early date and some of these contain certain ‘key’ elements, such as nickel and arsenic. So many of the early Mesopotamian objects examined contained small quantities of nickel that a search was made for copper ores containing nickel. One ore was found, accompanied by slag, at Jabal al Ma'adan, in the State of Oman, and there are reasons for supposing this was a source from which the Sumerian cities drew their copper. Bronze, said Prof. Desch, must have originated in the East, and for further light on its origin an examination of ores from such places as Anatolia, northern Persia and Baluchistan must be made.
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Origin of Bronze. Nature 133, 489 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133489b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133489b0