Quick Search

 
or
Browse by Subject

Trade Sales

Sale Bargains &
Special Offers

Distributed Titles

Conference Timetable

Request Catalogues

Vacancies at Oxbow

Dawn of the Metal Age: Technology and Society during the Levantine Chalcolithic

by Jonathan M. Golden

By midway through the fifth millennium BCE rapid social change was underway in the southern Levant. One critical dimension of this cultural revolution was a series of profound technological breakthroughs, bringing the dawn of the age of metals. Archaeologists working in the region have discovered a host of sites dating to the Chalcolithic Period (4700-3500 BCE) with material culture reflecting the production and use of copper. This survey takes the reader from the copper mines of the Aravah in Jordan and Israel where the ore was acquired, to the villages of the northern Negev such as Shiqmim, where copper was produced in household workshops, and the Beer Sheva sites, where several large workshops sprung up, and where a variety of finished copper goods saw limited circulation. It also explores a series of cave burials, such as the hidden tomb at Nahal Qanah, where a range of sumptuous luxury goods and exotic "imports" including copper scepters and the earliest gold in the region were buried with the elite members of Chalcolithic society. 234p b/w illus (Equinox 2010)

Browse other Near Eastern Bronze Age books