Copper smelting from ore

What it is

Slag and malachite ore reduced to metallic copper in crucibles above 1080 degrees, with shaft mines at Rudna Glava. It inaugurates extractive metallurgy and defines the Chalcolithic.

Rival centres: the Balkans (Belovode, c. 5000 BCE), Iran (Tal-i Iblis, c. 5000 BCE), Anatolia (Çatalhöyük, slag from c. 6000 BCE now considered accidental) and the Levant (Wadi Faynan). Multiple invention is likely.

What it led to

• Mining as a trade and control of deposits as a source of power
• Metal exchange networks across south-east Europe and Anatolia
• Full-time craft specialisation and inequality (Varna)
• Deforestation driven by demand for charcoal

Built on

• Burnt lime and gypsum plasterc. 8000 BCE
• Cold-hammered native copperc. 8000 BCE
• Lead smeltingc. 6500 BCE
• Updraught pottery kilnc. 6000 BCE
• Hammering of native copper
• Fired lime and gypsum

Made possible

• Goldworkingc. 4500 BCE
• Faience (glazed quartz frit)c. 4200 BCE
• Lost-wax castingc. 3700 BCE
• Arsenical bronzec. 3600 BCE
• Silver by cupellationc. 3500 BCE
• Arsenical bronze sword and daggerc. 3300 BCE
• Ötzi's copper axec. 3300 BCE
• Fortified settlement with bastionsc. 3200 BCE
• Bell Beaker potteryc. 2800 BCE
• Copper mining and smelting of Maganc. 2500 BCE
• Early iron smelting in the Ganges plainc. 1800 BCE
• Oxhide copper ingotc. 1400 BCE
• Industrial-scale copper production at Faynan (Khirbat en-Nahas)c. 950 BCE
• Zinc smelting by downward distillation (Zawar)c. century IX
• Lost-wax casting
• Copper axe-hammer
• Cupellation of silver

Links

Sources✓ verified 2026-09-25

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280316250_Archaeometallurgy_of_the_Vinca_culture_A_case_study_of_the_site_of_Belovode_in_Eastern_Serbia
• https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2017-08-29/ty-article-magazine/scientists-debunk-claim-that-copper-smelting-was-invented-8-500-years-ago-in-turkey/0000017f-dbf6-d3ff-a7ff-fbf673370000