Abstract
The use of brass, an alloy mixture of copper and zinc, became widespread in the Near East and the Mediterranean during the Roman period whereas pre-Roman zinc metallurgy was only evident in sporadic and scattered finds. Among these are objects dated to the Middle Iron Age / Urartian period, such as brass bracelet from Çavuştepe (Geçkinli et al., 1989), fibulae and a bowl made of gunmetal -an alloy of zinc, tin and copper- from Gordion (Hughes et al., 1988). It has been suggested that due to zinc's low melting point and high volatility, the difficulty in melting zinc from its ores and adding it to alloys might have been the technical limits for the early metallurgist, and those finds represent either individual deliberate experiments or accidental alloying due to a mixture of different ore types.
Numerous metal artifacts unearthed in the Urartian layers of Murat Höyük and Murat Tepe in 2018 and 2019, were subject to a detailed archaeometallurgical analysis. The results indicate that a bracelet, two earrings and a semi-worked rod were made of brass, and a fragment of an Urartian type belt reveal a composition similar to that of gunmetal (Güder, Özdemir and Vercik, 2022). We suggest that these alloys are deliberate products as zinc affects the workability of the material, and the alloying results in a color hues that resemble gold. Many questions have arisen from this pilot study, such as whether zinc metallurgy was a local technological phenomenon specific to the Urartian geography rich on ore deposits, and what is the chaine operatoire of zinc alloyed copper? In this presentation we will present our hitherto investigations and outline the future perspective of the 'The Traces of Copper-Zinc Alloys in Urartu' project. In particular, we will focus on preliminary results of the studies carried out on non-metallic inclusions in metals to examine whether the materials of the Murat Höyük and Murat Tepe finds were produced through co-smelting or cementation processes and a comparison of these finds with similar examples from both inter and supra-regional contexts. By expanding the research to other Urartian sites and museum's objects , we aim to elucidate the technological and socio-cultural aspects of zinc metallurgy in the Middle Iron Age in Anatolia.