Page 120 - Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Getty Museum Conservation, By David Scott

Decorative uses Some of the earliest dated beads from Babylon were made of
of malachite malachite (Moorey 1994); those found in the area of Ergani on
the upper Euphrates River date from around 7000 Β . c.Ε . The use
of malachite for beadwork started to disappear in this area around 4000-3000 B.C.E. when cop­
per smelting become an important technology. Malachite was still being used for ornaments
until much later in other parts of western Asia; for example, it was used as an inlay on pendants
from a Middle Assyrian necklace from Assur (Maxwell-Hyslop 1971).
Because of its beautiful coloration, malachite was used for ornaments, decoration, and
even cosmetics in ancient Egypt. Malachite and turquoise (a basic hydrous copper alumi­
num phosphate; see CHAPTER 7) were both known as mafek because of their similar green color
(Partington 1935). The goddess Hathor, whose face was painted with the green pigment, is
known as the "lady of mafek," and Sinai, an important source for malachite, was known as the
"land of mafek." There is a record of Amenhotep II (1411-1375 B.C.E.) using nearly 540 kg of
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mafek for inlay work at the temple at Karnak. Malachite was used as eye paint in Egypt as early
as the Badarian period (early part of the fourth millennium B.C.E.). It continued to be used
throughout the predynastic periods (ca. 3500-3000 B.C.E.) and into at least the Nineteenth
Dynasty (i307-iO70 B.C.E.) (Lucas 1934).
In China, malachite, known as kongqueshi, was often used as an inlay on metal objects
beginning around the sixth century B.C.E., during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770-221 B.C.E.)
(White and Bunker 1994). An exquisite example of this artisanship is the bronze fang lei (wine
vessel) shown in PLATE 19 (for further discussion of this object, see CHAPTER 12). A good-quality
banded malachite was available for the decorative inlay in this piece, similar to that used on
some belt ornaments found in Yunnan province dating from the second to the first century
B.C.E. of the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-24 CE.). A handsome circular belt ornament
from this period, decorated with jade and malachite, is in the Shumei Family Collection, Japan.
Tiny circular beads of malachite are attached with resin to the front surface of the ornament,
imparting a sheen resembling green fish scales.
Malachite can be ground up and used to make a paste inlay, a common technique fully
exploited in China. The use of paste inlays of malachite, as well as turquoise or azurite, on
bronze was highly developed by the fifth to the fourth century B.C.E., during the Eastern Zhou
dynasty. These inlays may represent a transition from the pseudocopper, red-pigmented, paste
inlay that was used on certain pictorial bronze vessels of the late-Spring and Autumn Period
(770-476 B.C.E.) of this dynasty (Le Bas et al. 1987).
There are references to ancient Roman necklaces being strung with malachite beads, but
the identification of the stone is usually wrong, according to Ogden (1982). He examined one
such necklace in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and discovered that the beads are
not made of a copper mineral but Chrysoprase (green chalcedony) and green feldspar. Malachite

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