Cold-hammered native copper
Metalurgia del cobre: martillado en frío de cobre nativo
- Date
- c. 8000 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Çayönü Tepesi, Diyarbakır, Turkey
- Credited to
- PPNB communities of the upper Tigris
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Beads, hooks and awls made by hammering nuggets of native copper from the nearby Ergani deposit, with annealing to prevent cracking. The first working of metal, still treated as a malleable stone.
Similar hammered copper is found at Aşıklı Höyük (c. 8000 BCE).
What it led to
- Recognition of metal as a prestige and ornamental material
- Long-distance exchange of copper objects
- An empirical basis for the later shift to smelting ore
Built on
- Stone hammerstones
- Perforated stone beads