Antiquity, Project Gallery: Nezafati et al. Previous Page Back to Project Gallery Antiquity Vol 80 No 308 June 2006 Ancient tin: Old question and a new answer Nima Nezafati, Ernst Pernicka & Morteza Momenzadeh Introduction The earliest appearance of tin bronze in Western Asia has been reported from Mesopotamia (Tepe Gawra, Kish, Ur, and Tell Judeidah) and southwestern Iran (Susa) and Luristan in west central Iran (Kalleh Nissar) in the late fourth and the beginning of the third millennium BCE, whereas the extensive use of tin and tin bronze can be dated around the mid-third millennium over a large area extending from the Persian Gulf to the Aegean (Pernicka et al. 1984, Stech & Pigott 1986, Weeks 1999, Fleming et al. 2005). Since Mesopotamia, the Khuzestan plain and Luristan all lack metallic resources, ancient metallurgists depended on their adjacent mineral-rich neighbouring regions including the Iranian plateau for the supply of raw materials (Figure 1). The fact that metals and other materials had to be imported from the east or the south is repeatedly mentioned in the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia. Despite the wealth of base and precious metal resources on the Iranian plateau, no tin deposits have been reported from this region, which could explain the huge bronze production in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Figure 1. Approximate location of Bronze and Iron Age sites and Deh Hosein. Click to enlarge. Figure 2. Location and simplified geological map of the The ancient mine at Deh Hosein We investigated the newly discovered ancient copper-tin mine at Deh Hosein (Momenzadeh et al. 2005) and several bronze artefacts of typical Luristan style (Overlaet 2004) and dating most probably to the Iranian Iron Age from about 1300/1250 to 650 BC. The results were compared with analyses of other bronze artefacts previously published in order to find a possible relationship. The ancient mine at Deh Hosein (Figure 2) is located c. 45 km southwest of Arak city in the eastern part of the central Zagros Mountains which form the north-eastern border of Luristan. The ancient workings appear as numerous big ellipsoidal open depressions in two rows along the mineralized horizons, distributed over an area of 4.5 x 6 km 2 . The old workings are up to 70 by 50m in size and up to 15m deep and are aligned http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/nezafati%20et%20al/index.html (1 von 4)10.05.2007 14:12:26