Archaeometallurgy, sometimes also known as paleometallurgy, can be defined as being the archaeology of the remains of mining and metallurgical activities. As in many other fields, it is thanks to the conjunction of inputs from different disciplines that one can make sense of the various types of archaeological remains. The interpretation of archaeological remains connected to the production and working of metal (that is, to the different processes that make up the production line) is very often difficult. These remains are in general unspectacular and hard to recognise. In order to identify the type of metallurgic activity as well as the socio-technological organisation of a given site one must undertake very detailed and methodical observations. Archaeometallurgy intimately links archaeology and archaeometry and implies a constant dialogue between the two disciplines.

 

Production line : this term applies to the process of transformation of a material of whatever sort (vegetal, mineral, cultivated plant, metal) from its state as a raw material to its state as a finished product. Each line can be broken down into a certain number of steps or stages of the process. The means employed during each stage are taken into account, described and studied; this could be a question of tools, actions upon the material itself, energy sources as well as time frame and the location of activity. This concept of a production line is the basic tool of the archaeologist and the historian of technology.

 

Laboratory work : the observation of the microstructure of a metal requires the preparatory work of removing and preparing samples from the selected object. These objects could be items of refuse related to metal work such as slag, hammerscales etc. or semi-finished products like blooms and ingots or indeed finished products. These samples are prepared in the laboratory (fixed in resin, polished) in order to obtain a perfectly smooth surface. They are then examined under a special (metallographic) microscope.

The work of metallography springs from the field of material sciences and is built upon the knowledge obtained from research into contemporary and ancient materials. A metal retains within it certain information that can provide quite precise evidence of the thermo-mechanic history of the object—hammering, casting, reheating, hardening. These observations are complemented by analyses of the composition of the metal. The results, after interpretation, allow one to identify the processes involved in the forming of the object, to reconstruct the chain of manufacture and to evaluate the quality of the alloys and the technological know-how.

Archaeometallurgy in Alexandria

The archaeometric and archaeological study of metallurgical production lines aims to identify, through the numerous archaeological remains, the types of activity, the socio-technological organisation within the sites, as well as the spatio-temporal organisation of the traffic in products (raw material, semi-finished product, finished product) in Alexandria and its environs during the Graeco-Roman period. One of the major points of interest in undertaking this sort of study within Lower Egypt lies in the apparent lack of a metallurgy of extraction (i.e. mining) and the importance of metallurgy of transformation based upon imports and exchanges over the medium and long distance.
The importance of Alexandria as a centre of commercial and industrial activities in the Mediterranean world of the Hellenistic and Roman periods is unanimously recognised. Within the numerous activities that enlivened the capital of Egypt, metallurgical industries seem to have held an important place. Metal production in Alexandria is attested for the Ptolemaic and Roman periods within literary as well as some papyrological sources, and the birth of practical chemistry is traditionally situated in Alexandria during the Roman era. It is, never the less, difficult to understand fully these activities through archaeology.

Test sites
(the study of these sites is presently under way)

The sites of the former British Consulate and Cricket Ground