Chemical Analysis of Early and Middle Bronze Age Copper-Alloy Objects from Lapithos Vrysi tou Barba

Given in Greek, this paper by Andreas Charalambous of the Archaeological Research Unit presents the chemical analysis of copper-alloy artefacts from the cemetery of Lapithos Vrysi tou Barba, dating to the Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age. Vrysi tou Barba lies near the north coast northwest of modern Lapithos and was excavated in four campaigns: by John Myres and Leonard Buxton in 1913, Menelaos Markides in 1917, the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in 1927, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 1931.

The study examines 424 metal objects from fifty tombs excavated in 1913 and 1917, conserved and identified in the storerooms of the Cyprus Museum under a publication project coordinated by Jennifer Webb. After weighing, photography and cleaning of surface corrosion, the objects were analysed non-destructively using X-ray fluorescence (XRF). Charalambous focuses on the four largest typological groups: knives, spearheads, plain pins and eyelet (toggle) pins.

Across the assemblage, arsenical copper is the most common alloy (35 per cent), followed by copper-arsenic-tin (21 per cent), unalloyed copper (13 per cent) and tin bronze (12 per cent). Knives, spearheads and plain pins are made predominantly of arsenical copper, whereas eyelet pins are mostly tin bronze. Lead was kept low in spearheads to avoid structural weakness and cracking, while high-tin and high-arsenic alloys were favoured for long pins, which Charalambous suggests was an aesthetic choice to imitate the colours of gold and silver. Because Cypriot copper ores outside the Limassol Forest are poor in arsenic, he suggests that arsenic minerals may also have been imported from the Aegean or Anatolia.

Lead occurs in 88 per cent of the objects, sometimes above 1 per cent to improve casting, while iron and sulphur derive mainly from incomplete smelting and refining. Fourteen objects contain enough zinc to qualify as early brass, comparable to an Early Bronze Age group from Bellapais-Vounous published by Paul Craddock in 1978; Charalambous explains these as the unintended result of smelting zinc-bearing oxide or carbonate copper ores under strongly reducing conditions.