Early copper metallurgy in Ancient Egypt – a case study of the material from Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Leipzig

Grant Agency of the Charles University, project no. 38715

This project focused on the detailed study of the museum collection, the artefacts from the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University, sampled with kind permission granted by the collection curator, dr. Dietrich Raue. Project was lead in cooperation with Jiří Kmošek, a specialist in archeometallurgy.

In 2015, a selection of objects from documented archaeological contexts was sampled, dated to the Early Dynastic period, Old Kingdom, First Intermediate period, Middle Kingdom, Second Intermediate period and New Kingdom. They were excavated mainly by the most important figure in the history of museum, Egyptologist Georg Steindorff. Obtained samples underwent range of analyses, in order to learn more about the chemical composition of objects and their properties.  Synthesis of the results took rather long time and only currently is being published the final interpretation.

The preliminary results of the project featured also on the main web page of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (for project outputs, scroll down):

5,000 years old exchange route between Egypt and Anatolia confirmed

Interdisciplinary Poster Received Honorable Mention from The Society for Archaeological Sciences

A Monograph by a PhD Candidate of the Czech Institute of Egyptology Coming Out Soon in Oxford

Interdisciplinary Archaeometallurgical Project Brought First Results

Project outputs

• Kmošek, J., Odler, M., Fikrle, M., & Kochergina, Y. V. (2018). Invisible connections. Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom Egyptian metalwork in the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University. Journal of Archaeological Science, 96, 191–207. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2018.04.004

  • paper is focused on the publication of Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom objects from the museum in Leipzig, one of the objects is made of material possibly coming from Anatolia

  

• Odler, Martin – Peterková Hlouchová, Marie 2017: „“May you receive that favourite harpoon of yours…” Old Kingdom spears/harpoons and their contexts of use“, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 46, s. 191–222.
  • paper is focused on the use of spears and harpoons in the earliest times of ancient Egyptian history, in 4th and 3rd millennium BC

• Kmošek, Jiří – Odler, Martin 2016:, Neueste Analysen der altägyptischen Metallartefakte aus der Ägyptisches Museum – Georg Steindorff – der Universität Leipzig, aMUN 2016 (Herbst), s. 31–34. PDF of the paper for download.
  • short summary of the aims and results of the project in German

• Kmošek, Jiří – Odler, Martin – Jamborová, Tereza – Msallamová, Šárka – Šálková, Kateřina – Kmoníčková, Martina 2016: Archaeometallurgical study of copper alloy tools and model tools from the Old Kingdom necropolis at Giza. In M. Odler, Old Kingdom Copper Tools and Model Tools, pp. 238–248. Archaeopress Egyptology 14. Archaeopress: Oxford 2016. PDF of the paper for download.
  • case study of the Old Kingdom tools and model tools from the museum collection

• Odler, Martin – Dupej, Ján 2016: Morphometrical and statistical case study of Old Kingdom adze blades. In M. Odler, Old Kingdom Copper Tools and Model Tools, pp. 248–260. Archaeopress Egyptology 14. Archaeopress: Oxford. PDF of the paper for download.
  • case study of the geometrical morphometry of Old Kingdom adze blades

• Kmošek, Jiří – Odler, Martin –Jamborová, Tereza – Msallamová, Šárka – Šálková, Kateřina – Kmoníčková, Martina 2016: “Diachronic changes of ancient Egyptian and Nubian metallurgy – Case study of material from the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University”. PDF of the poster for download.
  • poster on the first results of the project, presented at the 41st International Symposium on Archaeometry, Kalamata (Greece), May 2016

• Odler, Martin – Kmošek, Jiří  – Jamborová, Tereza – Msallamová, Šárka – Šálková, Kateřina – Kmoníčková, Martina 2016: Staroegyptské měděné a bronzové artefakty v Egyptském muzeu Lipské univerzity. Průběžná zpráva o projektu, Pražské egyptologické studie XVI, 2016, 37–46. PDF of the paper for download.
  • first results of the project in Czech, with English summary