Dani János - Hajdú Zsigmond - Nagy Emese Gyöngyvér szerk.: MÓMOSZ I. (Debrecen, 2001)

Szabó Géza: Újabb eredmények és módszerek a Kárpát-medence késő bronzkori tárgyainak archaeometallurgiai vizsgálataiban

several iron appliances one can severe clearly the outstanding grade of metallurgy of the Transdanubian Urnfield Culture, and the high efficiency of manufactured objects. CONCLUSIONS - Data of researches performed so far demonstrate that within the today's country border natural geographical factors necessary for bronze manufacturing were available in the Bronze Age. Among the geological factors the native copper and its ores along with tin, antimony and lead ores were present as well. The archaeological data - absence of considerable number of mining tools, absence of large waste-rocks and ash heaps - prove that no significant ore mining and metallurgy on industrial scale was developed in our country. A part of the archaeological data, however, indicate, that in some areas, for example in the Mátra mountains we should take into consideration the processing of native copper or even a smaller amount of ore. For the Velem and Sághegy workshops one can prove that also copper stone was processed, therefore one can suppose, that also ore metallurgy was practised there with the aim of alloy production. This activity, however, was insignificant as compared to the quantity of bronze articles in the Carpathian Basin. From the point of view of bronze processing, decisive factor was the raw material quantity delivered commercially to our territory. Tis is particularly valid for the Transdanubian territory of Urnfield Culture, wich lays rather far from every Bronze Age mines known in our days. - Part of ingots arrived to our territory from distant metallurgical centres got into big workshops near the power centres. In these workshops continuing processing and alloying of ingots or copper stone multifunctional ingots of definite composition were manufactured, further more articles which needed specials knowledge and tools for their manufacturing and widely used mass articles were also produced. These articles were commercially transmitted also to scarcely spread urnfield settlements where some of them were directly used. The ingots of higher alloying content and ingots acquired from Alpine metallurgical centres were used to produce on the site simpler appliances by small workshops which produced articles for everyday use. - Experiments performed on the base of archaeological finds and excavation observations duly proved that in smaller and larger metal processing workshops furnaces of various types and various appliances were used. In these workshops diversified according to the settlement structure of the Urnfield Culture, from the materials acquired on different ways, various articles were manufactured, to satisfy the various demands shaped out on the basis of various social environment. Raw material and products of central workshops demanding special knowledge and produced in a large variety as for place, time, age and method of production, were forwarded to local smiths performing the further processing, or, in case of finished products, to the user. This commercial activity extending over all territory of Europe and covering all fields of metal industry, including the raw material circulation, acquisition of half and finished products and special auxiliary materials can by no means be regarded as a long-distance trade for supplying luxurious articles to satisfy the demands of a narrow social layer, as here one encounters a well organised commerce of mass industrial raw materials in great distances covering all the details of the activity. All this was facilitated by spread of the mass use of bronze articles. The recyclable character of the bronze ensure the high and relatively constant value of this metal, what made it suitable to become the general value exchange measure in form of ingots or in form of various goods, rings, bracelets etc. which appeared in large quantities in HA A period. The moneysubstituting role of this peculiar multifunctional good and of the ingots, solved simultaneously the need of local workshops for raw material, which was more rich in alloying materials an as the occurrence and movement of articles show, also the circulation of money. - Metallurgical investigations unambiguously proved, that in enhancing the serviceability of objects of late Bronze Age, shaping of the suitable texture played a primordial role though this factor was scarcely investigated so far. According to the evidence of metallografic pictures all the methods known in our days were applied for obtaining the most suitable microstructure (casting, increasing/decreasing the cooling speed, cold-working/annealing) and this fact reflects high level of material knowledge achieved in the practice, and of expertise. High