Lead smelting
Fundición del plomo
- Date
- c. 6500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Çatalhöyük and Yarim Tepe, Turkey / Iraq
- Credited to
- Neolithic communities of Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Lead beads obtained by reducing galena in open fires, the easiest metal to smelt. The first step in extractive metallurgy, before copper.
Some authors argue the Çatalhöyük beads are natural cerussite rather than smelted lead.
What it led to
- The discovery that rock contains metal, the conceptual basis of smelting
- Experimentation with temperatures and reducing atmospheres
- Lead as a later additive in glazes and bronzes
Built on
- Burnt lime and gypsum plasterc. 8000 BCE
- Cold-hammered native copperc. 8000 BCE
- Fired lime and gypsum
- Hammering of native copper
Made possible
- Copper smelting from orec. 5000 BCE
- Silver by cupellationc. 3500 BCE
- Cupellation of silver
- Glazing