Bronze age Sardinia shows its metal.More than 7,000 skillfully engineered stone towers and numerous surrounding villages dot the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. These sites, built between about 1800 B.C. and 800 B.C. by members of the Nuragic culture, have yielded a variety of copper, bronze, lead, and iron artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. . Archaeologists have now uncovered the first extensive evidence for a sophisticated metalworking facility at a Nuragic settlement. "The existence of a true metal workshop provides convincing proof that the Nuragic people employed advanced metallurgical technologies in Late Bronze Age Bronze Age, period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the Sardinia;' the researchers assert. Lenore J. Gallin of the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , and Robert H. Tykot of Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard College Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. describe their find in the fail JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY. From 1986 to 1989, Gallin directed excavations at a Nuragic site that consists of a central tower, at least three associated towers, and a large surrounding village enclosed by a stone wall. She and her co-workers uncovered metal slag (waste produced during metal smelting), terra-cotta crucibles containing residues of molten metal, a lead ingot ingot Mass of metal cast into a size and shape such as a bar, plate, or sheet convenient to store, transport, and work into a semifinished or finished product. The term also refers to a mold in which metal is so cast. , lead scrap, and more than 200 copper-based artifacts. They also found hundreds of fragments of fire-blackened clay molds and cores; metalworkers apparently made bronze objects by pouring molten material into a mold, allowing it to harden, and then breaking the mold. Some mold fragments contain incised incised /in·cised/ (in-sizd´) cut; made by cutting. designs and may have been used to make ornate sword handles and other decorative items, Gallin and Tykot contend. Investigators have also found molds for practical implements, such as hammers and picks. The molds contain layers of two different clays, a polished form on the inner surface and a porous strip that allowed gases to escape during solidification of molten metal, the researchers say. Chemical analyses suggest that metalworkers sometimes added lead to bronze to improve its casting properties. Nuragic metalworkers at the site probably manufactured bronze objects from the 12th to the 8th centuries B.C., according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Gallin and Tykot. |
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