Early Metallurgy of the Persian Gulf: Technology, Trade, and the Bronze Age World

Abstract

This volume examines the production and exchange of copper and its alloys in the Bronze Age Persian Gulf. During the third and second millennia BCE, the Gulf was a critical long-distance trade route by which prestige goods such as lapis lazuli, carnelian and ivory reached wider western Asia. Additionally, the Gulf functioned as a major metal supply route for Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran, and abundant cuneiform sources testify to the flourishing copper trade between the urban centers of southern Mesopotamia and the Bronze Age Gulf polities of Dilmun and Magan. Multiple aspects of the Bronze Age Gulf trade network are investigated in this research program, which is based upon the archaeometallurgical analysis of copper alloy objects from four third millennium BCE sites in the United Arab Emirates. The data generated by compositional and lead isotope analyses are integrated with geological information from southeastern Arabia and technological studies of early copper smelting in the region, and provide important insights into a number of issues of archaeological significance. These range from technological aspects of early copper-base alloy production in southeastern Arabia, to more anthropologically informed research regarding the interaction of specialized copper production, exchange, and social complexity in early Arabia.