During excavations in the spring of 2015 in the settlement of Elkab, a complete and almost intact crucible was discovered on the floor level of a Second Dynasty building. This article describes the crucible and its archaeological context, it explores the design of the crucible in comparison with contemporary crucibles of a corresponding style and it foreshadows the character of on-going research. The crucible has the shape depicted in Old Kingdom tomb metal-working scenes. Its profile became the hieroglyphic ideogram denoting metal-workers implying it was an iconic implement, although this is currently the only example of this kind of crucible from Egypt. Indeed, this is the earliest complete crucible for melting copper yet found anywhere.

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来自 Elkab 定居点的早期王朝坩埚（上埃及）

2015 年春季，在 Elkab 定居点的挖掘过程中，在第二王朝建筑的地板上发现了一个完整且几乎完好无损的坩埚。本文描述了坩埚及其考古背景，将坩埚的设计与相应风格的当代坩埚进行了比较，并预示了正在进行的研究的特征。坩埚具有古王国墓葬金属加工场景中描绘的形状。它的轮廓变成了表示金属工人的象形文字表意文字，暗示它是一个标志性的工具，尽管这是目前埃及这种坩埚的唯一例子。事实上，这是迄今为止在任何地方发现的最早的用于熔化铜的完整坩埚。