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Cultural Metallurgy—A Key Factor in the Transition from the Chalcolithic to Bronze Age in the Southern Levant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2021

Nissim Amzallag Open the ORCID record for Nissim Amzallag [Opens in a new window]
Nissim Amzallag*
Affiliation:
Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Beer Sheba Israel Email: nissamz@post.bgu.ac.il
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Abstract

The causes of the disappearance of Late Chalcolithic society (Ghassulian) in the early fourth millennium bc remain obscure. This study identifies the collapse as the consequence of a change in the approach to metallurgy from cosmological fundament (Late Chalcolithic) to a practical craft (EB1). This endogenous transition accounts for the cultural recession characterizing the transitional period (EB1A) and the discontinuity in ritual practices. The new practical approach in metallurgy is firstly observed in the southern margin of the Ghassulian culture, which produced copper for distribution in the Nile valley rather than the southern Levant. Nevertheless, the Ghassulian cultural markers visible in the newly emerging areas of copper working (southern coastal plain, Nile valley) denote the survival of the old cosmological traditions among metalworkers of the EB1 culture. Their religious expression unveils the extension of the Ghassulian beliefs attached to metallurgy and their metamorphosis into the esoteric fundaments of the Bronze Age religions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 445 - 465
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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