Arsenical copper tools of Old Kingdom Giza craftsmen: First data

Highlights

• Largest corpus from Egyptian Old Kingdom settlement analysed so far: 15 objects.

• Artefacts characterized also by metallography and micro-hardness.

• Arsenical copper and copper with impurities in the corpus confirmed, no tin bronzes.

• Full-size functional tools (chisel, two axe blades) were made of arsenical copper.

• Provenance of one artefact, needle 20966, tracked to Predynastic metalwork.

Abstract

This study deals with the remains of metal objects from the settlement of workers living and labouring at the Egyptian site of Giza in the reigns of Dynasty 4 Kings Khufu and Khafra (c. 2500–2450 BCE). It provides the first detailed set of data on copper tools of the craftspersons working with wood, limestone, textile, etc., focusing on the major and trace element analyses, lead isotopes and microstructural description. Arsenical copper is again confirmed as a material practically used in the Old Kingdom, with arsenopyrite from Eastern Desert proposed as a source of arsenic. The CuAgAs needle 20966 has similar lead isotopes as two pieces of Predynastic Egyptian metalwork and litharge from late Uruk site Habuba Kabira (Syria), being probably a recycled specimen of earlier material connected to silver production. With 15 objects analysed in detail, it is for now the largest Old Kingdom corpus of metal objects from the settlement context.

Introduction

Pyramids of Giza are monumental achievements of the Egyptian state and bureaucracy in the Dynasty 4 of the Old Kingdom (Dynasties 4–6, c. 2600–2180 BCE). At Giza were later laid out the foundations of the Old Kingdom archaeology and the site is a cornerstone of the contemporary knowledge on this era (latest summaries with further literature in Der Manuelian, 2017, Lehner and Hawass, 2017). Despite the decades of research, many questions were answered only partially. Main attention e.g. in the research of the Old Kingdom architecture is focused on the large-scale logistics of the building projects, recently enriched by unexpected new sources (Tallet, 2017). On the micro-scale, this paper aims to address one of the mundane aspects of these projects, use of the metal tools. With 15 objects, it offers so far the largest analysed corpus from the Old Kingdom settlement context. Among the very few predecessors was an Egyptian study of the tool fragments found in the first boat pit at the pyramid of Khufu at Giza (Iskander, 1960), with arsenic present in some samples.

Apart from a general opinion that all has been lost or recycled, there are many contexts with tools and model tools from the period (Odler, 2016). The framework of our research is informed by this statistical overview on the preserved archaeological contexts and on the typological assessment of the preserved artefacts. Therein, full-size functional artefacts were tentatively distinguished from the more numerous and flimsier model tool blades, expected to occur predominantly in funerary contexts. Our study focuses on one of the less frequent contexts, coming from the settlement debris of Giza, excavated a few decades ago. A wide range of archaeometallurgical techniques has been applied to characterize the Dynasty-4 metal tools. It is presumed that the objects and their fragments found in the settlement rubbish could have been used in the practical life and were later discarded. The reasons behind discard, if the object is not broken and useless, can be only guessed, but it is reasonable to assume that these artefacts underwent the same treatment as other products of the Old Kingdom metalworkers. It is approach similar to (Verly et al., 2019), where a chisel from a New Kingdom workshop context was a model for an experimental work with such artefact.

Recent research focuses on the trace elements and lead isotopes of Egyptian metalwork (Kmošek et al., 2018, Odler and Kmošek, 2020, Odler and Kmošek, submitted, Rademakers et al., 2018). The most significant result of these studies is that Egypt in its earlier periods was sourcing copper in the nearest vicinity, in the Eastern Desert and Sinai. Moreover, particular Egyptian approaches to copper smelting can be defined (Rademakers et al., 2020). Recent publications thus allow to define specific “Egyptian” approaches to the production and use of metalwork. In case of microstructures, a number of metallographies of ancient Egyptian metalwork was published (Garenne-Marot, 1984, Golden, 2002, Iskander, 1960, Kmošek et al., 2016, Lang, 1987, Maddin et al., 1984), including sometimes information on the micro-hardness of the artefacts, being proposed as a “reasonable” method to accompany metallography (Scott and Schwab, 2019, pp. 61–64). We suppose that further work on the metallurgy of Old Kingdom Giza, including the experimental approaches (Burgos and Laroze, 2020, Stocks, 2003) ought to take into account the characterization of the actual remains of metalwork. Shape reproduction is not enough, as was stressed recently, with a call for the context evaluation of the finds (Verly et al., 2019, p. 124). Our approach infers on the practically used tools from well-contextualized and dated artefacts.

Already “father of Egyptian archaeology”, Flinders Petrie, searched for the dwellings of the pyramid workers at Giza, the structures identified by him as such were rather artisan workshops (Conard and Lehner, 2001). Egyptian excavations uncovered workshops, including metallurgical, south-east of the pyramid of Menkaura, but the report is rather short and gives little data on the metallurgical installations (Saleh, 1974). A mirror from this settlement was analysed, but rather unhappily only with X-ray diffraction (Saleh, 1983). The most productive in this regard were works of the American mission at Heit el-Ghurab, in a complex of structures, nicknamed “lost city of the pyramid builders”, datable to the reigns of Khafra and Menkaura (see e.g. Lehner, 2016, Lehner, 2002). The studied corpus comes from a settlement debris dump located to the south-west of these structures, and probably contains remains of the previous phase of this settlement (Fig. 1A, Fig. 1B).

An Austrian team led by Karl Kromer excavated in the south-eastern part of the Giza necropolis in 1971–1975 (Kromer, 1978). The crescent-shaped area running in the NE-SW direction was uncovered in several squares (10 × 10 m each, Fig. 1). Not a single unequivocal settlement feature was identified. The finds of seal imprints make it possible to date the debris to Dynasty 4, the reigns of Khufu (5 imprints) and Khafra (38 sealings). Kromer presumed that some of the material was of Early Dynastic dating, but this can be dismissed on the basis of the preserved material culture, especially ceramics (A. Wodzińska, pers. comm.). The current interpretation of the context is that it was a settlement debris dump that came into existence when the later phase of Heit el-Ghurab site was being built during the reigns of Khafra and Menkaura (Lehner, 2018, Lehner and Hawass, 2017). The area of the Kromer’s excavation was re-excavated in 2018 (preliminary reports by Lehner, 2018, Witsell, 2018). New excavations have confirmed that the deposit is identifiable in profile by tiplines, as the debris was dumped basket by basket from another location, while two major deposition events were identified. The reassessment of the results even enable to ponder a possibility that the Kromer remains contained in the lower deposition strata, besides debris from workshops, also remains of a Dynasty-4 royal palace building(s). The work on the Kromer site continues to the present day and thus the interpretation in details might change.