“And I turned and saw under the sun, that it is not the nimble ones that get a successful run, victory for the brave, bread for the wise, and the prudent do not have wealth … but time and opportunity for all of them."
(Ecclesiastes 8:11)
So, today we know that the centers where our ancestors learned to process copper, today there are not one, and not two, but several. Well, first of all, it is Chatal-Huyuk and, possibly, several other similar “cities” located nearby. Then there is the Great Lakes region in the United States, even if everything was limited to the processing of native copper and, at best, its hot forging. Further, we can assume that the knowledge that copper can be processed spread throughout the Middle East, got to Cyprus, then from there to Crete and the Cyclades, and further to the territory of mainland Greece, Malta, Italy and Spain, as well as to Egypt, to the Sumerians and the Caucasus, and from there to the Black Sea steppes.
Ancient Chinese bronze dagger inlaid with the Jou dynasty.
But what about regions like ancient India or China? There, people themselves thought of processing copper, as they thought of processing stone, or did some migrant settlers also bring this technology to them? But it’s one thing to sail on such a sea as the Mediterranean, one might say - from island to island, or even in general because of the coast, and quite another, it’s not clear why to cross high mountains and deserts.
The first people in China
About the same China, we know that at one time, namely 600 - 400 thousand years ago, during the glaciation period, Sinanthropus or "Peking man" lived there (hence its name) - a subspecies of the human race, close to Pithecanthropus, however somewhat later and more developed. It is believed that Sinanthropus knew fire, knew how to make stone tools and were … cannibals who hunted their own kind. Many scientists consider them to be a dead-end branch in the development of mankind, however, be that as it may, and people on the territory of China have lived for a very long time. However, in the Central and Southeastern parts of the Asian continent, people have always lived "a very long time", as evidenced by archaeological finds in Central Asia, and in India, and on the territory of the same China. In any case, in the Neolithic era and the Eneolithic that followed it, they already lived in these areas, as evidenced by the traces they left.
For example, in the territories of modern South Turkmenistan and Fergana, archaeologists have discovered monuments that are very similar in appearance to the Eneolithic monuments of Western Asia. These are the so-called tepe - high hills, consisting of layers, from the successively emerging settlements on them at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. NS. The remains of mud brick houses were found in them, the walls of which were covered with paintings of geometric patterns. The inhabitants of these villages were engaged in agriculture, because during the excavations stone grain graters were found.
Cattle breeding in these places did not appear immediately: for example, the bones of sheep, bulls and pigs are found here for the first time only at the fourth meter, if you count from below; and only later the bones of these animals become more and more.
Dwellings of the Botay culture. National Museum of the History of Kazakhstan.
The settlement Botay in the north of Kazakhstan, dating back to the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC, became a striking monument of the Eneolithic era. and covering an area of 15 hectares. The remains of 158 dwellings were found here, the walls of which were covered with animal skins, and in the center there was a fireplace for cooking and heating the dwelling. Stone tools (arrowheads, spearheads, knives and axes), bone needles, pottery and a huge amount of horse bones were also found, which suggests that the horse was already tamed by the Botai, and not only tamed, but also, as it is believed, was used by them for riding and also for hunting their wild relatives! In the town of Shebir, items were found not only from stone, but also from copper. Ceramic dishes of Shebir people were egg-shaped, and their pots were covered with a characteristic comb-like ornament. Surprisingly, for some reason they very much loved to wear necklaces made of shells of sea mollusks, although they lived very far from the sea, and their main occupation was hunting! At the same time, jewelry made from them was not only very skillfully processed, but also drilled with a drill.
A flint knife from the Botay tract. National Museum of the History of Kazakhstan.
In other Eneolithic settlements of Central Asia, dishes are found, which are also mainly painted with geometric patterns. Moreover, a number of patterns are similar to the paintings of Mesopotamia and Elam. Local residents made tools and weapons from flint; copper products were found already in the lower archaeological layers. These are awl, leaf-shaped knives and some other items. This culture was named the Anau culture, and it is of exceptional interest, first of all, because it makes it possible to establish the fact that the ancient population in the south of Central Asia was associated with the equally ancient southern centers of Sumer and Elam. There is evidence that allows us to talk about the connection between Anau and the Indian culture of Harappa (III - early II millennium BC). However, Anau could well serve as a link not only between the most ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and India, but also the civilizations of ancient China. The fact is that Chinese archaeologists have found in ancient Eneolithic settlements in Xinjiang samples of painted ceramics, similar in their patterns to the culture of Anau. That is, it can be assumed that these monuments of Xinjiang and Northern China are to a certain extent connected with the ancient Eastern cultures of both India and Western Asia.
Stone walls and first copper
Well, in India itself, as far as this can be judged on the basis of the available archaeological finds, the transition to the era of metals first occurred in the mountainous regions of Baluchistan (in the western part of modern Pakistan), adjacent to the Indus River valley from the west. The lower layers of the oldest settlements discovered here date back to the Neolithic era and date back to the first half and middle of the 4th millennium BC. NS. But in subsequent layers, dating from the end of the IV and the first half of the III millennium BC. e., the transition to the Copper Age is already clearly visible. The settlements of this time are becoming more comfortable and consist of mud brick buildings, sometimes with a stone foundation; some of them are surrounded by walls of truly cyclopean masonry. Copper is clearly known to the inhabitants of these villages. They make dishes with the help of a potter's wheel and cover them with various multi-colored ornaments. The specific weight of agriculture in their economy was, apparently, still insignificant, but cattle breeding, on the contrary, is very developed. Moreover, the farm has already used a horse, but for what purposes, alas, it has not been established.
Bronze Scythian dagger. Museum of the St. Petersburg Mining University.
It was during the Eneolithic era that the tribes living in India turned out to be technically armed enough to begin the development of the Indus river valley, where in the middle of the III millennium BC. NS. the "Indian civilization" or the culture of Harappa emerged, which, in many ways, can already be considered a class society.
The first copper of the Yangshao culture
Yes, but if the ancient Chinese could exchange ceramics with the inhabitants of Central Asia, then could they not also receive knowledge about how to process metal through them? This is certainly worth thinking about, but for now it is important to note the fact that the oldest painted dishes in China are very similar to the painted dishes of the Eneolithic settlements of India, the Middle East and ancient Europe, and are found both in the west of the country and in Manchuria and also in the south. … One of the oldest developed cultures in China is the Yangshao culture, one of the settlements of which, the Yangshao camp, is located on the right bank of the Yellow River, slightly below the confluence of the Wei River. The Yangshaos lived in round or rectangular semi-dugouts with a conical roof supported by pillars in the center of the dwelling and were engaged in agriculture. But hunting and fishing also played a significant role in their lives. Traditional Neolithic tools were used, while copper was unknown to them for a very long time. Only in the later layers of the Yangshao culture, dating back to the end of the 4th millennium BC, were the first traces of copper processing found.
A characteristic pottery vessel from the Yangshao culture. British Museum, London.
At the same time, an anthropological study of human remains from the burials of Yangshao shows that its population in ethnic terms for the most part was very close … to the modern population of these areas. Moreover, this closeness is confirmed by the presence of three-legged vessels, very characteristic of later Chinese ceramics. Moreover, judging by the finds, the farmers of ancient China, who knew metal, not only came into contact with hunter-gatherers in the steppes and with fishermen of coastal territories, who did not know metal yet, but also had rather close ties with them and … exactly the same ties existed for them and with other, related crops of farmers.
And again copper and walls …
The Yangshao culture apparently lasted until the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e., when in North China there were great changes in the economy and culture. In the lower reaches of the Yellow River, in Shandong and Shanxi, as well as in the regions of Shanghai and Hangzhou, a large number of settlements of the so-called Longshan culture were discovered, and in them were found items made of copper and … bronze! It is believed that the Longshan culture arose on the basis of the Yangshao culture, but under the influence of outside migrants from Central Asia! It was they who brought here with them a potter's wheel, new varieties of grain (wheat from the Middle East) and breeds of livestock (goat, sheep, cow). Quite often, the settlements of the Lunshans were surrounded by earthen ramparts, on which there was a palisade, and the rampart of one of them had a circumference of 15 km. The huts looked like round huts with a stove and were no longer buried in the ground. Next to the stoves, stoves were arranged with rows of parallel chimneys passing through them, similar in structure to the kans in the later Chinese fanzas, so that this heating system for dwellings, as we see, has a very long history. The population of these villages was engaged in agriculture, but cattle breeding also developed - sheep, pigs, bulls and horses were raised here. Pottery from Yangshao was very different, first of all, in that it was not clear why there were no paintings on it, and it was gray or completely black. But the three-legged vessels loved by the ancient Chinese, which are called and connect the Eneolithic era in China with the subsequent history of its material culture up to the Han period (i.e., the end of the 1st millennium BC), archaeologists also met here.
The characteristic three-legged dishes of the Longshan culture. British Museum, London.
Well, the very presence of fortifications around the settlements suggests that their residents had someone to defend themselves from and what to defend, and, accordingly, the complication of the social relations that existed between them. Obviously, it was at this time that the foundation of a new society was being laid, the basis of which was slavery and property inequality. But since we are talking about copper metallurgy, then again it is not very clear - did the ancient Chinese themselves figured out how to process copper, or did they borrow this technology from some other peoples, along with samples of painted ceramics …
So some experts believe that the metallurgy of copper and bronze arose in China independently, that is, in fact, it was also a matter of chance, and therefore it can also be ranked as one of the centers of the emergence of metalworking. Others insist that this art came to the Chinese from the West. Moreover, both those and others have arguments, and it remains only to hope that subsequent finds will be able to clarify the situation.
"The Riddle of Erlitou-Erligan"
Its essence lies in the fact that the earliest culture of the Bronze Age on the territory of Northern China is the Erlitou culture, dated by archaeologists from 2100 to 1800 (1500). BC. However, experts state that its characteristic bronze casting technique is not the earliest stage of the local bronze metallurgy. But an earlier culture, preceding Erlitou, was not found in the Yellow River basin, although isolated finds of copper and bronze items were found there at the sites of the more ancient Longshan culture. These findings allowed historians to make the assumption that the local metallurgy of bronze just arose on the basis of its achievements, as a result of which it has an independent origin.
The area of Erlitou culture.
The problem, however, is that already the then Chinese metallurgy was distinguished by the highest technique of bronze casting. That is not only that, somehow, very suddenly, the Erlitou Chinese switched from copper to bronze. They also used technologies that other peoples did not even suspect. At that time, metallurgists of the West and the Middle East made bronze products by forging, casting into sand or stone open molds on top of the mold, and used the "lost shape" technology, here they mastered a much more laborious and original method of "lump molding". And since this method combines both ceramic and metallurgical techniques, this indicates the overall high level of the then Chinese foundry technology.
Wine vessels of Erlitou culture. Luoyang City Museum, China.
The essence of this method was as follows. The model for casting was made not of wax, but of clay, on the surface of which the desired relief was carved. Then the clay mold was removed from it, sticking piece by piece onto a previously prepared model. After that, on each of the pieces from the inside, a fine finishing of the relief was carried out, and then these pieces of clay were fired, which also required a lot of skill, because in the process of finishing and firing the pattern should not be disturbed.
Stone tools of the Erlitou culture. OK. 1500 BC Heian Provincial Museum, China.
The original clay model was ground from the outside to the thickness of the walls of the future casting, and as a result, a casting mold was obtained, consisting of two layers, because on the outside it was lined with fired parts of the external mold. The seams and joints between them were not specially sealed tightly so that metal could flow into them. And this was done not just like that, and not out of inability, but solely so that the metal, frozen in the seams, could be given the appearance of a special graceful edge, which brought a certain special decorative charm to each such product. Moreover, the use of vertical casting seams to decorate cast products has become, over time, even a tradition of the Chinese metallurgical art.
Ancient Chinese bronze vessel of ritual purpose, made in the "lump molding" technology. Shang Dynasty.
Well, after the mold was ready, molten bronze was poured into the empty space between the outer and inner walls. And it is clear that it was simply physically impossible to extract the casting without breaking the mold, so each such casting was a completely unique product, because the mold could no longer be used for its production! Interestingly, parts of the product, such as the handles or legs of the vessel, were cast separately and inserted into a ceramic mold so that molten metal would "weld" them to it during casting. Sometimes they acted differently: first, the body was cast, and the parts were “welded” to it during re-casting.
Well, as for the settlements of the Erlitou culture and the related Erligan culture (sometimes called the "Erligan phase", which existed in 1600-1400 BC)), these are nothing more than ancient cities, and in them ruins of palaces and workshops for smelting bronze were discovered. Moreover, if in the first phase of its development the city occupied an area of 100 hectares, in the second phase (each phase lasted about 100 years) already 300 hectares, and in the third, a walled palace has already appeared there. Then the phase of decline began, but the city continued to be a city and buildings were still built in it, and bronze items were cast in the workshops.
Stone mold for casting axes (Sardinia).
Erligan was larger and more developed, and around the perimeter it was surrounded by a wall about seven kilometers long. There, too, a large palace complex and several craft workshops (for some reason outside the city walls) were discovered, including a foundry workshop. Metal tools and weapons were found here: knives, splints, chisels, arrowheads and picks. Chemical analysis of these and other metal items shows that they were all made of bronze. However, zinc was used in the alloy instead of tin. In particular, the chemical composition of the metal from which the bit found there was cast was as follows: Cu - 98%, Sn - 1%; and at the vessel: Cu - 92%, Sn - 7%.
In social terms, the Erlito-Erligan complex (and the entire Erligan phase) differed from the Anyan culture that replaced it in that inequality was not yet so noticeable: the leader was more the elder of the community collective than its sovereign ruler. No regalia of authority, no accessories of high positions, no burials in the form of tombs with mass burials of people and things were found. Although there were already palaces. There was not found any noticeable traces of a developed cult and rituals designed to serve the social upper classes and symbolize their greatness, although people were already engaged in fortune-telling and casting vessels of clearly ritual purpose.
Zhou Dynasty Chinese Bronze Dagger.
In any case, the unusually high level of metal processing technology is surprising, which did not seem to have been brought from anywhere, but appeared among the Erlitous-Erligans, it is not clear how. Perhaps “time and chance” were for them, or such high technologies were the result of the purposeful efforts of ancient masters, or, again, an insight that suddenly flashed in one of them in the head ?! Of course, we can say that archaeological excavations in China are relatively recent and that this "missing link" will still be found. However, today the picture is as follows: single copper and bronze products come to China from the adjacent western lands and from the peoples living there, and then - bang, and immediately an unexpected rise of high-level technologies.
(To be continued)
