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The Technology of Primary Copper Mining in South-East Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2014

B. Jovanović
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Extract

Through lack of data, knowledge of primary copper mining has remained for a long time unclear (Bognár-Kutzián 1976, 75; Sherratt 1975, 577). For the same reason, comparisons with the mining of flint, well known in Central and Western Europe, were not possible. This lack of direct knowledge of copper mining has meant that theories concerning the origins of copper metallurgy have been based largely on the results of examination of various copper objects (Tylecote 1976, 5; Rowlands 1971, 210).

Recent excavations carried out in SE Europe underline the importance of mining as a new element in the investigation of the beginning of copper metallurgy. Two sites are foremost: Ai Bunar in South Bulgaria and Rudna Glava in North-East Yugoslavia (fig. 1). Mining works of considerable size, attested at Ai Bunar, have not been completely examined (see now Cernych 1978, not available when this report was prepared). According to the published results, it seems to be a combination of open-cast and shaft extraction; the places of exploitation are numerous—eleven of them have been investigated—but this may not be the final total. An ore bed of copper carbonate minerals, mainly malachite and to a lesser extent azurite, has been exposed for a distance of 1·5 km (Cernych 1975, 133; Cernych 1978).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 45 , December 1979 , pp. 103 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1979

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References

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