Israel has unearthed a workshop for smelting copper ore that once operated in the Neveh Noy neighborhood of Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev Desert.
Tel Aviv University and Israel Antiquities Authority which are jointly conducting the study believe copper-producing technology was a closely guarded secret.
The new study, which began in 2017, also shows that the site may have made the first use in the world of a revolutionary apparatus: the furnace.
According to Ms. Abulafia—Director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority—the excavation has revealed evidence for domestic production from the Chalcolithic (Greek for “copper” and “stone”) period, about 6,500 years ago.
During the Chalcolithic period, when copper was first refined, the process was made far from the mines. The scientists hypothesize that the reason was the preservation of the technological secret.
“It’s important to understand that the refining of copper was the high-tech of that period. There was no technology more sophisticated than that in the whole of the ancient world,” Prof. Ben-Yosef from Tel Aviv University said.
“At the beginning of the metallurgical revolution, the secret of metalworking was kept by guilds of experts,” he added.
The results of the study were published online on September 25, 2020, in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.