Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...

In antiquity the many mountain ranges of
the Near East, including the Taurus of
eastern Turkey, the Zagros of western
Iran, and the Caucasus between the
Black and Caspian seas, were rich in
metallic ores. At seventh-millennium B.C.
sites such as Cayonu, Tell Ramad, and
Ali Kosh the earliest stages of metalworking
technology are documented.
Toward the end of the fourth millennium
B.C., the burgeoning urban centers
in the lowlands began to demand metals
to make objects for the ruling elite and for
the growing temple complexes. By this
time, the basic properties of some nonferrous
metals-especially copper, gold,
silver, and lead-were understood. It was
known, for example, that the shape of
metal could be altered by heating it to a
liquid state, pouring it into a mold, and
letting it cool and harden. Metals were
also shaped by alternately hammering
and heating them in a process now called
annealing. Artisans had learned as well
-probably by trial and error-that when
some metals are mixed in their liquid
state, they combine to form a metallic
alloy, a new material that is often, when
liquid, more fluid and, when cool, harder
than its components.
The properties of meltability, malleability,
and miscibility are the basis of two
of the most important techniques of ancient
metalworking-hammering and
casting. Hammering was used to make
or to finish all kinds of objects. Vessels,
such as the elaborately decorated one
(fig. 62) from Luristan, were made entirely
by hammering. The shape was
formed by raising or sinking the bronze-a
copper-and-tin alloy-by hammer blows.
This particular vessel was made in two
parts, joined in the middle by bronze
rivets. Six registers of birds, trees, and
horned and striding animals were hammered
up from the vessel's surface in the
repousse technique. The bodies were
then elaborately decorated with chased
lines created by a dull tool that, when
struck, pushed the metal to either side.
Gold is a soft metal, easily worked by
hammering. A western Iranian trapezoidal
plaque of the first millennium B.C. (fig.
64) was made in the same way as
60 6
44
62