Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba and Pyla-Kokkinokremos: A Study of Bronze Age Copper-Alloy Objects

Andreas Charalambous of the Archaeological Research Unit presents the results of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analyses of Bronze Age copper-alloy objects from two Cypriot sites: the cemetery of Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba, representing the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age, and the settlement of Pyla-Kokkinokremos, representing the Late Bronze Age. The paper is given in Greek.

At Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba, Charalambous has analysed 180 of the roughly 450 to 460 metal artefacts recovered from 50 tombs excavated by John Linton Myres in 1913 and Menelaos Markides in 1917. The study forms part of a publication project led by Jennifer Webb. Stored in the Cyprus Museum for a century without treatment, the objects had to be cleaned by the Department of Antiquities conservation laboratory before surface readings could be taken, as corrosion products such as copper oxide, malachite, azurite and bronze disease skew surface measurements toward pure copper.

At Pyla-Kokkinokremos, inhabited for roughly fifty years at the transition from Late Cypriot IIC to IIIA before its abandonment in the early 12th century BC, earlier excavations were conducted by Vassos Karageorghis and Athanasia Kanta. The material studied here comes from Sectors 3, 4 and 5 of the 2014 to 2016 excavations conducted by Belgian universities (Ghent and Louvain) and the Mediterranean Archaeological Society in Greece. The assemblage comprises 133 copper-alloy items (mostly small fragments), along with 33 lead fragments, 3 iron objects and 29 copper slags.

The analyses show a clear shift in alloying and copper metallurgy between the two periods. At Lapithos, arsenical copper predominates, while most objects contain either no tin or up to 5 per cent tin. Pins over 10 cm long account for the pieces with the highest arsenic (up to 15.6 per cent, giving a silvery surface) and the highest tin, including toggle and mushroom-headed pins. Because Cypriot ores are poor in arsenic apart from the Laxia tou Mavrou and Pefkos deposits in the Limassol forest, Charalambous suggests that arsenic minerals such as realgar and orpiment may have been imported from Kythnos or Anatolia, alongside imported tin. At Pyla-Kokkinokremos, 86 per cent of the objects are tin bronzes (typically 8 to 11 per cent tin) and only 3 to 4 per cent are arsenical copper. He highlights an object from Pyla cast in two different alloys, pieces re-identified by pXRF (silver surface decoration, pure tin, and metallic copper mislabelled as slag), and a heavily leaded tripod stand fragment compared with examples from Palaepaphos-Skales and Palaepaphos-Plakes. The quantity of scrap metal and lead fragments in Sectors 3 and 4 at Pyla confirms a workshop for producing and recycling bronze.