History of Copper

Image on top: Figures on a bronze-helmet (300 B.C.) from Amfreville, France.

Image on bottom: Scientists have reason to believe that the roof of Parthenon Temple Acropolis, Greek (448-432 BC) was made of small copper sheets.

Alongside gold, silver and lead, copper was one of the first metals to be worked and formed by human hands. The oldest copper artefacts, primarily decorative objects, were hammered out from surface deposits of pure copper much in the same way as ancient gold objects.

Man’s knowledge and use of copper goes far back in time. It is believed that it started about 10 000 years ago. Fragments of copper beads and pins fashioned by working particles of free copper have been found in places in the Middle East (Ali Koch in Iran) and in the region today known as Turkey (Cayönü and Catal Hüyük).

The art of smelting copper carbonate and copper oxide ores was probably developed 2 000-4 000 years later, in the regions of Turkey and a small area between present-day Israel and Egypt. The production of copper objects has then increased simultaneously with the development of better methods of extracting copper, not least the discovery of the technology of smelting sulphide ores which occurred
some 4 500 years ago.