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+
Knowledge of [history]
does not benefit and
ignorance of it does not
harm.

HISTORY OF METALLURGY
DEFINITION OF TERMS
MACFABRO, 2015

Native Gold can be

agglomerated into larger
pieces by hammering,
unlike native copper

+ Copper axes from the

Balkan Region
6500 to 4500 BC

Chalcolithic period
transition to bronze age

Always a luxury item.

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Copper age around

4th Millenium BC

With four storage rooms

containing stone mallets, fine
pottery and bone tools

nDiscovery

that metals can be recovered

from metal-bearing minerals

Mining shafts in Rudna Glava,

Serbia
+ th
4 Millenium BC

n Oxide

minerals are easily reduced to metal in

a charcoal bed above 700 degrees C

n Objects

made from smelted copper around

3800 BC are known in Iran

Bronze Age

Shang Dynasty (1500 BC)

n Copper-arsenic

alloys
with superior properties
to copper in cast and
wrought form

n 1

to 7 % As, up to 3% Sn

n Bronze

can hold a sharper

edge for longer

n Middle

East to Sumer and

to Anatolia (2800 BC),
to Indus Valley (2500 BC),
and to Europe (2000 BC)
"Yuefu You". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yuefu_You.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Yuefu_You.jpg
"Ritual wine container in shape of owl, Shang Dynasty" by User:PericlesofAthens - Self-made at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington D.C.. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ritual_wine_container_in_shape_of_owl,_Shang_Dynasty.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Ritual_wine_container_in_shape_of_owl,_Shang_Dynasty.jpg
"CMOC Treasures of Ancient China exhibit - bronze battle axe" by Editor at Large - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:CMOC_Treasures_of_Ancient_China_exhibit_-_bronze_battle_axe.jpg#mediaviewer/File:CMOC_Treasures_of_Ancient_China_exhibit_-_bronze_battle_axe.jpg

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Age of Iron, from 1500 BC

Cast Iron
n Pioneered

by the
Chinese as early as 5th
century BC

n Iron

Pagoda of Yuquan
Temple

n Almost
n 21.28

Biringuccio
(1480 to c.1539)

n De

La Pirotechnia
(Concerning
Pyrotechnics)

n Contained

equipment
illustrations, with clear
and practical instructions
for mining, smelting and
metalworking, assay
methods, metal casting

m tall

The early literature

n Vannoccio

54 tons of cast iron

n Georgius

Agricola (1494

to 1555)
n De

Re Metallica (On the

Nature of Metals)

n Includes

prospecting,
surveying, crushing,
concentration and
assaying methods