Page 21 - Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Getty Museum Conservation, By David Scott

The ancient use of copper is enshrined in Mesopotamian mythology. These tales told of
many gods who lived deep in the bowels of the earth and were independent of the gods in
heaven. Their leader was Enmesarra, or Nindara, a warrior god whose special mission was
to combat demons, monsters, and plagues. Enmesarra, Lord of the Ghost World, was also the
god of hidden metallic and mineral treasures. Covered in a skin of solid copper, he came from
the mountains where this metal was manifest. Enmesarra was the night sun hidden during half
his course, as was the ancient Egyptian god Ra in the form of Arum. Like the sun, Enmesarra
waited to come out of the earth to reveal the splendor of metallic copper to the world of humans
(Partington 1935).
At this early stage in human technology, copper was indeed a utilitarian as well as a deco­
rative metal, easily extracted and worked into small ornaments, pectorals or tupus (South Amer­
ican cloak pins), or useful halberds (medieval weapons), palstaves (ax blades), or knives. Indeed,
fire setting in the mountains could be used to bring forth metal: gold, for example, could be
melted from deposits by setting fire to the vegetation on a hillside, the heat of the conflagration
producing rivulets of metal.
The transubstantiation of minerals to copper metal and the early use of native copper has
long been a source of fascination: Gordon Childe talked of "homotaxis," or modes of develop­
ment, with this primary period of copper use corresponding to "mode zero" of our development
over time, while Glyn Daniel talked of an "eochalcic episode." These neologisms, which now
seem rather artificial, have faded into obscurity. More colloquially, and meaningfully, a whole
age of humanity's past has been designated the Bronze Age, signifying the great importance of
copper and copper alloys in a crucial stage of our development from hunting-and-gathering
communities to settled villages. This change is associated with the increasing use of metals, first
copper and bronze, and later iron.

E X P L O I T A T I O N OF C O P P E R

Old World developments The use of native copper goes back in time at least ten thousand
years and must have occurred in most geographic areas at a very
early period in human prehistory. When Neolithic cultures first began using it, around the
eighth millennium B.C.E., they fashioned the metal into small ornaments and simple copper
blades. The first undisputed evidence for human exploitation of native copper deposits comes
from the aceramic Neolithic site of Cayonü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey, where beads of mala­
chite and native copper were found that date back 8,750 to 9,250 years before the present day.
In addition, worked copper dating from the eighth to the seventh millennium B.C.E. has been
found in both Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Even at this early period, some of the copper objects
had been heated to anneal them so they could be hammered into shape, ready ductility being
one of the chief assets of native copper (Muhly 1986).

I N T R O D U C T I O N
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