Copper Smelting Technology

Abstract

According to the notions of Scott (1912) and Rickard (1932, the initial idea about copper smelting technology was that smelting the first copper happened accidentally in a campfire. Rickard based this on observation from Katanga, where he had found copper prills adhering to chunks of ore in a campfire made by the local population. Theoretically it is possible to reduce copper in a campfire. This observation alone, however, does not mean that this principle has been the universal origin of metallurgy, as it has already been proven for the Neolithic period of the Near East that pyrotechnological processes had been carried out in appropriate reaction vessels (Voigt 1985). It is only in exceptional cases that the thermodynamic conditions for the reduction of copper can be maintained in a ‘normal’ bonfire. Strong winds can help in some cases and for a short time, temperatures of 1 000 °C can be reached, but it is most unlikely that a strongly reducing atmosphere could be maintained over a long period, as would be necessary for the reduction of copper.