NOT INVASIVE ANALYSES ON A TIN-BRONZE DAGGER FROM JERICHO: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Tin-bronze makes its appearance in Southern Levant during the Early Bronze IV, the post-urban phase of the

last centuries of the 3rd millennium 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.