Investigations at Tal-i Iblis : evidence for copper smelting during the Chalcolithic period

This thesis examines a small corpus of artifacts from Tal-i Iblis, Iran dating to the mid-6th millennium BCE. When excavated in the late 1960s, these artifacts were presumed to be evidence of an early copper smelting technology on the Iranian Plateau, and they were delivered to MIT for further analysis. In this thesis I briefly describe the origins of early metallurgical activity in the Old World focusing mainly on the Iranian Plateau. This will provide a basis for the significance of the thesis and of the early date associated with the metallurgical objects. I have studied six of the Tal-i Iblis artifacts curated at MIT through extensive qualitative and quantitative analytical methods. These methods are described in Chapter IV. The results and discussion are presented in Chapters V and VI. I have found that these Iblis sherds provide substantial evidence for the presence of a copper smelting technology during the early occupation levels at Tal-i Iblis, Iran.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Frame, Lesley (Leslie Diana)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Heather Lechtman.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33759

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33759