Not invasive analyses on a tin-bronze dagger from Jericho. A case study

Tin-bronze makes its appearance in Southern Levant during the Early Bronze IV, the post-urban phase of the last centuries of the 3rdmillennium BC, when arsenical copper was still the most widespread copper alloy. Only from the following Middle Bronze Age tin-bronze will be the utmost spread alloy. The adoption of tin as alloying metal purports new technological skills, and a changed trade supply system, through new routes, thanks to itinerant coppersmiths. The examination of dagger TS.14.143 found in an EB IV (2300-2000 BC) tomb at Jericho by mean of trace elements and Energy Dispersive X-ray Diffraction analyses, provided info about its metal composition and technology. The detection of tin, testified only by a few specimens at the site so far, allows some reflections about the beginning of diffusion tin-bronze, and the presence of a small-scale melting activity in the post-urban phase in the key-site of Jericho

A report on the examination of animal skin artefacts from the Bronze Age salt mines of Hallstatt, Austria

The aim of this report is to describe the ten animal skin fragments and artefacts, and to discuss these in relation to the qualities and role of skins as a cloth technology in the Bronze Age. This includes the colour and texture, dimensions and thickness, sewing, seams and edges, use and reuse of these artefacts. These fragments and artefacts have not been studied before and add to the previously published findings of animal skin artefacts from the Bronze Age salt mine. They will be discussed in comparison to recent analysis of the textile finds from the same site and in relation to the context of animal skins in the Bronze Age

Ultrafast Collective Dynamics in the Charge-Density-Wave Conductor K0.3_{0.3}MoO3_{3}

Low-energy coherent charge-density wave excitations are investigated in blue bronze (K$_{0.3}$MoO$_{3}$) and red bronze (K$_{0.33}$MoO$_{3}$) by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. A linear gapless, acoustic-like dispersion relation is observed for the transverse phasons with a pronounced anisotropy in K$_{0.33}$MoO$_{3}$. The amplitude mode exhibits a weak (optic-like) dispersion relation with a frequency of 1.67 THz at 30 K. Our results show for the first time that the time-resolved optical technique provides momentum resolution of collective excitations in strongly correlated electron systems.Low-energy coherent charge-density wave excitations are investigated in blue bronze (K$_{0.3}$MoO$_{3}$) and red bronze (K$_{0.33}$MoO$_{3}$) by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. A linear gapless, acoustic-like dispersion relation is observed for the transverse phasons with a pronounced anisotropy in K$_{0.33}$MoO$_{3}$. The amplitude mode exhibits a weak (optic-like) dispersion relation with a frequency of 1.67 THz at 30 K. Our results show for the first time that the time-resolved optical technique provides momentum resolution of collective excitations in strongly correlated electron systems.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Some Early Bronze Age stone moulds from Scotland

This paper presents details of a number of previously unpublished or relatively inaccessibly published Early Bronze Age stone moulds from Scotland. Viewed in the wider context of Early Bronze Age metalworking in Britain, they are important additions to the inventory of finds, for as well as augmenting the concentration of discoveries long known from northeast Scotland, they expand the distribution southwards into eastern and central Scotland and into the Scottish Borders and therefore go some way to filling the gap that previously existed between Aberdeenshire and Northumberland

Soliton Analysis of the Electro-Optical Response of Blue Bronze

In recent measurements on the charge-density-wave (CDW) conductor blue bronze (K0.3MoO3), the electro-transmittance and electro-reflectance spectra were searched for intragap states that could be associated with solitons created by injection of electrons into the CDW at the current contacts [Eur. Phys. J. B 16, 295 (2000); ibid 35, 233 (2003)]. In this work, we adapt the model of soliton absorption in dimerized polyacetylene to the blue bronze results, to obtain the (order of magnitude) estimate that current induced solitons occur on less than ~ 10% of the conducting chains. We discuss the implications of these results on models of soliton lifetimes and motion of CDW phase dislocations.Comment: 11 pages, including 1 figur

Bronze Age moss fibre garments from Scotland – the jury’s out

In the light of recent discoveries of early to middle Bronze Age burials with mats and fibrous material in Scotland, for example at Langwell farm and Forteviot, it was deemed timely to re-evaluate earlier finds of this period, several of which were discovered and initially reported on nearly a century ago. As part of this research it was noted that three Bronze Age finds from the old literature were reported as clothing or shrouds made of hair moss (Polytrichum commune). Three of these are reassessed here, with a detailed re-examination of the “hair moss apron” from North Cairn Farm. Technological analysis of this find showed no evidence for the twining previously reported and SEM fibre analysis shows that it is unlikely to be hair moss or indeed Bronze Age. However, there is other evidence for hair moss artefacts from other British Bronze Age and Roman contexts. These suggest it is possible that hair moss fibre was used in Scotland in the Bronze Age, but that the North Cairn Farm fibrous object should no longer be considered among this evidence

Bethlehem in the Bronze and Iron Ages in the light of recent discoveries by the Palestinian MOTA-DACH

The discovery of the necropolis of Khalet al-Jam’a, around 2.2 Km south-east of Bethlehem (Nigro et al. in this volume), provides new data on the Bronze and Iron Age town which controlled the main route connecting Jerusalem to Hebron, and the access to the wadiat crossing the southern Judean desert and leading to the coastal plain. Intermediate Bronze Age/Early Bronze IV, Middle Bronze shaft tombs, and at least two major Iron II burial caves (Tomb A7 and the Barmil’s Tomb) excavated by the Palestinian MOTA-DACH in an Iron Age cemetery allow to draw up a renewed picture of Bethlehem and its environs and give the opportunity to re-appraise its long history

Folded, layered textiles from a Bronze Age pit pyre excavated from Over Barrow 2, Cambridgeshire, England.

The textiles from Over Barrow, Cambridgeshire, England present the opportunity to examine the burial practices at the end of the Early Bronze Age. They were excavated from a pit pyre cremation along with cremated bone, a bone needle/pin and two small sherds of a collared urn. Preserved in charred clumps of multiple layers, they have the potential to provide clues as to how the textiles were used in the cremation, for example, whether they were used as clothing, shrouds or for other purpose such as binding strips. These possibilities raise a number of questions as to the role of textiles in Bronze Age cremation burials in the early second millennium BC in Britain