ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5, pp.

1085–1092

Production of Silver across the Ancient World

Paul CRADDOCK*

Dept. of Conservation and Science, The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG.
(Received on November 30, 2013; accepted on March 3, 2014)

The quest for silver through antiquity encouraged a succession of major developments across a variety
of technologies. Silver and its minerals occur in a variety of ores, but rarely in more than trace amounts
such that in order to discover and extract them various special technologies had to be developed, result-
ing in the first separation of small quantities from the fourth millennium BC. Through the first millennium
BC there was a steady increase in the demand for silver, much accelerated by the introduction of coinage
from the Mediterranean to South Asia that led to the major developments in all aspects of mining tech-
nology. The continuing demand led to new technologies to extract silver from copper and to recover
metal from smelting debris.

KEY WORDS: silver; ore; mining; smelting; process; Rio Tinto; Dariba; Agucha.

have been associated with argentite and ceragyrite, which

1. Introduction
although not especially colourful or shiny compared to cop-
Silver occurs as a native metal in limited amounts and per or even lead ores, are dense and thus of potential inter-
also as mineral ores such as the sulphide, argentite, Ag2S est, and would have been easily smelted. The discovery of
and as the chloride, ceragyrite, AgCl, but once again in only cupellation is a little more problematic, but the silver min-
very limited quantities.1) Silver is far more prevalent as a erals are often associated with lead ores and the resulting
minor component in other metal ores, gold and copper, but mixed metal after smelting would have been decidedly dis-
particularly in those of lead. The presence of minor quanti- appointing in appearance. However carrying out the usual
ties of silver in lead ore in the Middle East seems to have metal refining technique of melting in an open crucible
been known, and extracted from the fourth millennium BC. would have progressively oxidised the lead, enabling it to be
This was man’s first attempts to separate trace amounts of skimmed off. From this it would soon become apparent that
one metal from another. This was done by the process of small quantities of silver were sometimes to be found in lead
cupellation, by which the argentiferous lead was subjected ores, but that both high temperatures and an air blast were
to an oxidising blast at around 1 000°C, oxidising the lead necessary if the lead was to be oxidised in a reasonable time
to litharge, PbO but leaving the silver as a separate metal (They also probably soon noticed that the practitioners of
phase2,p.221-8,3) The evidence for this was the presence of lith- this process often became ill, but this never seems to have
arge, which does not occur as a natural mineral, at smelting concerned anyone right up to the 20th century!).
sites in northern Syria and in eastern Anatolia.4,5) Pieter
Meyers6) has studied the composition of early silver arte-
2. Minerals and Mines
facts in the Eastern Mediterranean for indications of the
likely ores and processes used. Silver extracted by cupella- As noted above, native silver or minerals concentrated
tion should contain traces of lead (at least 0.05%, but typi- enough to be smelted directly only occur in very limited
cally at least an order of magnitude higher), but only negli- quantities, and already by the first millennium BC virtually
gible amounts of volatile elements such as zinc. For example, all silver must have come from ores containing only a few
the silver artefacts of the Early Bronze Age Argaric culture thousand parts per million at most. The lead ores could
in Spain of the second millennium BC have very low lead either be the primary sulphide, galena, PbS or the secondary
contents and are thus likely to have been smelted directly carbonate, cerussite, PbCO3, formed by the weathering of
from silver ores.7,8) The silver artefacts from Mahmatlar in the sulphides, and thus tending to occur near the surface.
eastern Anatolia, dated to the third millennium BC, have sub- Meyers6) noted that the gold content of the oxidised ores is
stantial traces of zinc and thus cannot have been cupelled.9) very much higher than in the primary ores. This is because
Thus it is possible to begin to construct a scenario for ear- in the weathering process some of the lighter more electro
ly silver production. At first the very limited amount of negative metal ions tend to dissolve and drain down into the
native silver could be utilised, and some would inevitably deposit but the gold is unaffected and left behind, and thus
becomes concentrated.
* Corresponding author: E-mail: [email protected] The near surface deposits would be expected to be the
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2355/isijinternational.54.1085 first exploited. At the great Mauryan-period silver mines in

1085 © 2014 ISIJ

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

the Aravalli Hills (see below), the heavily oxidised, known ver.17,2,p.216-21) As they are from an oxidised ore, the silver
as gossanised, surface deposits suggest that in the upper lev- typically has a high gold content. Jarosites can be a soft clay
els of the mines the ore would have been principally or hard rock, with a wide colour range and are not particu-
cerussite10) (although the primary argentiferous galena was larly dense such that they do not have the appearance of a
certainly also worked from the lower levels). The few con- promising ore. As such they do not seem to have been
temporary early punch-marked silver coins that have been exploited by the indigenous Late Bronze Age inhabitants,
analysed have gold contents between 0.7 and 1.3%, sugges- and the great achievement of the Phoenicians was to discov-
tive of oxidised ores.11) A somewhat similar situation is er the jarosite’s potential and to develop ways of successful-
found at Laurion in Greece where Conophagos12) believed ly smelting them.18) Many of the jarosites have a low lead
that the upper levels would have been mainly of cerussite. content and thus lead had to be added to the smelting charge
However, if so then these must have been worked out early in order to collect the small amount of silver contained in
in the mine’s long history, probably already in the Bronze each smelt. Sometimes the lead came from considerable dis-
Age. Analysis of the blebs of metal in some of the Classical- tances as evidenced later in Roman times at Rio Tinto.19)
period slags led Photos-Jones and Jones13) to believe that There was a later legend that the Phoenician sailors had so
cerussite was still the main ore used, but more detailed study much silver to carry back that they had to throw away their
showed that the original mineral in the slag had been galena, lead anchor stocks and replace them with silver. Could this
and which had subsequently oxidised.14) This conclusion is be a fanciful reference to the Phoenicians bringing in lead
supported by the relatively low gold content of the contem- from across the seas to smelt the jarosites?
porary Athenian drachma coins.6) In addition other complex argentiferous lead ores were
Meyers further postulated that although most Greek silver smelted often adding barites and quartz as fluxes. This pro-
must have come from primary galena ores, elsewhere, duces a mobile slag through which the argentiferous lead
through the Middle East the high gold content of the silver could drain easily. This seems straightforward but at many
suggest that cerussite was the more common ore. However, sites some of the slags contain many quite macroscopic
there is another possible source- the legendary silver from fragments of the crushed fluxes that have appearance of
Tartessos. From the beginning of the first millennium BC having been added very shortly before the slag solidified
the Phoenicians crossed the Mediterranean and began to (Fig. 2), and are accordingly referred to as free silica
exploit the resources, particularly in Sardinia and the Iberia slags.20) These slags also routinely retain much more argen-
Peninsula. In their search for metals they found the vast tiferous lead. Thus it would seem that for some reason the
mineral wealth of the Iberian Pyrites Belt that stretches for slags were solidified by adding the crushed flux which
hundreds of km across Andalucia and into Portugal.15) In would both stiffen and cool the melt, prior to being removed
particular they discovered the jarosite ores, rich in silver. from the furnace whilst the process was still in progress. The
These form at the base of the weathered horizon at its junc- smelting site at Monte Romero, near to Rio Tinto, in Huelva,
tion of with the primary deposit where the more soluble in the south of Spain, dated to the 7th century BC has been
metal salts that percolated from above will have precipitated excavated and studied.21,22) There some of the free silica
and where early mining concentrated (Fig. 1).16) slags were in the form of balls or buns, typically 20–25 cm
They are thus a decomposition product of very variable in diameter, and had been seemingly stored for further pro-
composition and appearance, but are mainly the sulphates cessing, although here and at other sites most of the free sil-
and oxides of iron, potassium, aluminium of general formu- ica slags were abandoned on the slag heaps with no further
la Fe3(OH)6.X(SO4), where X can be a number of metals processing intended. A possible explanation could be that
including arsenic, antimony, copper, lead, bismuth and sil- after the majority of the argentiferous lead had drained

Fig. 1. Rio Tinto. East end of Corta Lago: Junction of the primary sulphidic pyrites (white) with the oxidised gossan (dark)
above. Note the ancient gallery (circled) exposed in the enriched material just below the contact. (P. T. Craddock 1977).

© 2014 ISIJ 1086

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

through the slags more crushed flux was added to halt the cates were found, presumably intended for resmelting to
process. Some of the free silica slag could be crushed and recover the lead.
assayed to determine the amount of argentiferous lead
remaining. Where sufficient was present the slag would be
3. Production in India
worked into balls and stored for further processing, other-
wise the slag was just dumped on the heaps. The resmelting The introduction of coinage from the mid first millenni-
of the free silica slags produced free-flowing tap slags. The um BC created an enormous demand for silver across the
silver would have been extracted from the argentiferous lead Old World from Spain to India. This resulted in major devel-
by cupellation. At Monte Romero a stack of used cupella- opments in all aspects of mining technology.23) Indeed many
tion vessels, now mainly composed of lead oxide and sili- of the most famous mines of antiquity, Rio Tinto, Laurion
etc. achieved their maximum production being worked for
silver in the later first millennium BC. This is also true in

Fig. 2. Section through a typical free silica slag from Cerro de la

Tres Aguilas, Spain. Note the large quantity of quite macro-
scopic quartz fragments. Although they are cracked due to
sudden heating, their profiles, especially at the edges are
still quite sharp showing that the iron and barium oxides in
surrounding molten slag had little or no time to react and Fig. 3. Ancient mines in the Aravalli Hills of North West India, A
begin to dissolve the quartz before the slag had set. (cf the Agucha, D Dariba and Z Zawar, together with B, the
Dariba slags Fig. 13). (P. T. Craddock). ancient port of Bharuch or Broach. (T. Simpson).

Fig. 4. Plan and section of Dariba. (HZL).

1087 © 2014 ISIJ

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

Fig. 5. Looking north along North Lode (photo position at arrow A on Fig. 4). Note the quartzite chert ridge with workings
in the graphite mica schist to either side (see Figs. 6 & 7). In the foreground is a later opencast in the calc-silicate
which has gone through earlier galleries now exposed on the left hand side. (P. T. Craddock).

India where the introduction of the silver punch-marked

coinage in the mid first millennium BC24,25) created an enor-
mous demand for silver. The sources of the metal have hith-
erto been obscure with many claiming that silver was not
produced on any scale within ancient India.26) However,
fieldwork in the Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan in north west
India has shown that the Mauryan state developed several
truly enormous mining enterprises, both for zinc minerals at
Zawar27) and for silver at Dariba and Agucha10,28) (Fig. 3).
The Aravalli Hills are formed of Precambrian rocks tilted
almost vertically. At Dariba and Agucha the metalliferous
ore is contained in the hard calc silicate rocks and the adja-
cent and much softer graphite mica schists. The latter were
much easier to mine but their complex mineralogy with
mica, sillimanite, potassium feldspars etc. made them diffi-
cult to smelt (see below). The primary ore minerals are of
mixed iron, zinc and lead sulphides, of which the lead is
argentiferous at Dariba and Agucha.29) The near-surface
deposits at both mines are extensively gossanised and it is
likely the argentiferous lead ore would have been principally
the carbonate, cerussite, PbCO3 and the sulphate, anglesite,
PbSO4. At Agucha the complex antomonide ore, freibergite,
([Cu, Ag, Fe]12 [Sb, As]4 S13) was also a significant source
of silver.
At Dariba a series of small near-surface mines survive,
principally in the graphite mica schist (Figs. 4, 5 & 6) dug
both for their silver and to access the ore in the calc silicate
deposits below, and there is evidence that similar workings
were also once present at Agucha. These are likely to have
been the earliest workings and mining continued at depth
following the ore bodies down. This created a series of mas-
sive near vertical workings, known as stopes, penetrating
Fig. 6. Mining in the graphite mica schist alongside the upstanding
down for hundreds of metres, well below the water table quartz dykes at North Lode. (P. T. Craddock).
(Fig. 7). The graphite schist and surrounding country rocks
are pervious which created a major drainage problem. As
the workings at both mines are well below the surrounding at the top of one of the stopes at Dariba (Fig. 8), rather sim-
plain there was no possibility to drive a drainage adit from ilar to systems recorded in Japanese mines in the 19th cen-
the workings out to an adjoining river valley as the Romans tury.30)
had dug at Rio Tinto. Instead the water had to be raised to At Agucha the recent open cast mining of the Mauryan
the surface and a series of bailing ponds were encountered mine has exposed a complex series of workings beneath the

© 2014 ISIJ 1088

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

ancient opencast (Fig. 9), the sophisticated layout of shafts opencast pit over the East Lode at Dariba must surely be the
and cross cuts being partly determined by considerations of largest such mine working to survive from antiquity (Figs.
ventilation and drainage of the workings at depth as well as 4 & 11). At this mine there was an additional problem,
access to the ore (Fig. 10). because of the steep hillside on the west side, all the waste
When the richest ore had been extracted by deep mining had to be dumped on the other side which was of unstable
major opencast mining was undertaken at both mines. The alluvium. This had to be supported and thus a vast timber
complex of benches was constructed (Fig. 12). The benches
run along one side for several hundred metres and the
benches have been identified descending at four levels and
further levels may continue down beneath the present fill of
the opencast.
The mined ore would have been beneficiated by crushing,
hand picking and washing. At Dariba a series of mortars sur-
vive cut into the hard calc silicate rock surrounded by enor-
mous heaps of bean-sized waste, and similar heaps exist at
Agucha.
The excavations at both mines failed to discover any
remains of intact smelting units, but from the very many
fragments of refractory ceramics in the slag heaps it has
been possible to conjecture their form. There were many
thick, crude curved pieces that could have come from hemi-
spherical shapes of approximately 30 cm diameter. There

Fig. 8. Small bailing pond and timber dam at the top of the large
stope (Fig. 7). The wooden ladder on the left is original and
Fig. 7. Dariba South Lode: Near vertical stope typical of the large leads up to the next pool. Note the large beam across the
scale workings in these mines. The arrow indicates the bail- stope, probably used for hauling water up to this level. (L.
ing pool (Fig. 8). (L. Willies). Willies).

Fig. 9. The ancient open cast mine at Agucha before modern mining commenced. A complex system of deep mines lay
beneath (Fig. 10). (P. T. Craddock).

1089 © 2014 ISIJ

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

Fig. 10. Agucha: Conjectured arrangement of the west end of the deep workings, based on drilling and development at the
modern mine (the squares are at 10 m vertical and 100 m horizontal intervals). Note the paired shafts, probably
for ventilation purposes. (HZL).

Fig. 11. East Lode opencast seen from the top of South Lode (photo position at arrow B on Fig. 4). with the exposed sec-
tion of the timber revetment (Fig. 12) circled. This is certainly the largest opencast metal mine of antiquity. Note
the enormous quantities of waste dumped on the alluvium on the far side that had to be supported by the revet-
ment. (L. Willies).

were vitrified and slagged on their concave, i.e. their inner tion time at high temperature. The latter is reinforced by the
surfaces. These could either have come from a bowl furnace studies on the vitrification of the smelting hearth fragments
or a smelting hearth. On some fragments which included the which suggest temperatures in the region of about 1 150°C
edge, it was clear that the slag flow was away from the edge, maintained for only a little over an hour, a very short smelt-
suggesting that the ceramic had been set in ground and thus ing time. Despite this the slags contain relatively few blebs
was a hearth lining, similar to those used in Japan until the of argentiferous lead, certainly when compared to the Phoe-
19th century.30) nician free silica slags discussed above, indicating a good
The smelting slags at both mines were very heteroge- separation of slag and metal, with very little silver being lost
neous, containing many fragments of unreacted gangue min- to the slags. It is possible that the slags were mechanically
erals such as mica, and clearly must have been very viscous worked whilst still semi-molten to squeeze out much of the
(Fig. 13), unlike the contemporary copper and iron smelting lead.
slags at Dariba which were homogenous and clearly had The next stage was the extraction of the silver from the
been fully mobile. The viscosity and high melting point is lead by the process of cupellation. At Agucha some pits,
due to the aluminium content of the gangue materials in the also of the third century BC, were excavated that contained
graphite mica schists (see above and Fig. 14). However the a great deal of cupellation debris. This included many very
survival of the gangue fragments suggests either that they small cupels that must have been used to assay each batch
were added late in the process, recalling the free silica slags of ore to discover the silver content. There were also frag-
from southern Spain, or alternatively a relatively short reac- ments of furnace lining that had been attacked by lead oxide

© 2014 ISIJ 1090

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

(a)

(b)

Fig. 12. (a) Excavated section of the East Lode timber revetment showing part of one of the lifts. Note the old ladder stiles
reused as backing behind the vertical timbers. (P. T. Craddock). (b) Isometric drawing of the excavated section of
the revetment. (B. R. Craddock).

causing very extensive glazing together with long runs and which it could be recovered by cupellation.2,p.232) Liquation
drips of lead silicate that enabled the orientation of each was used in Medieval Europe and in the Far East, but the
fragment to be ascertained. Studies on these refractories origins of the process are uncertain. Rovira and Renzi31)
showed that they had been at temperatures of about 1 100°C believe that the process was used by the Tartessians early in
for many hours suggesting an industrial-scale continuous the first millennium BC, and it has been suggested that the
process under ceramic hoods, similar to those envisaged by process could have been used somewhat earlier in the Late
Conophagos3,12) at the contemporary silver mines at Laurion. Bronze Age on Sardinia.32) The Romans certainly utilised
liquation,2,p.233) but it does not seem to have been used in the
Far east until after European contact.33) The Romans were
4. Other Sources of Silver
also developing methods to recover silver lost in earlier pro-
Argentiferous copper was also a significant source of sil- cesses, for example it is likely that the old Greek slags and
ver in the past. The silver could be extracted by the process tailings were reworked at Laurion.14) At Rio Tinto there is
of liquation, in which the molten copper was mixed with evidence for the processing of other smelting debris to
lead, whereupon the silver transferred to the lead from recover the silver. When smelting ores that are rich in arse-

1091 © 2014 ISIJ

 ISIJ International, Vol. 54 (2014), No. 5

new technologies and great endeavours. From the develop-

ment of sophisticated chemical treatments to the establish-
ment of huge mining enterprises in remote locations all
demonstrate the determination to produce the maximum
amount of silver possible.

REFERENCES
1) C. C. Patterson: Econ. Hist. Rev., 25 (1972), 205.
2) P. T. Craddock: Early Metal Mining and Production, Edinburgh Uni-
versity Press, Edinburgh, (1995).
3) C. E. Conophagos: Archaeometry, ed. by Y. Maniatis, Elsevier,
Amsterdam, (1989), 271.
4) K. Hess, A. Hauptmann, H. Wright and R. Whallon: Metallurgica
Antiqua, ed. by Th. Rehren, A. Hauptmann and J. D. Muhly, Der
Anschnitt, Beiheft 8, Bochum, (1998), 57.
5) E. Pernicka, Th. Rehren and S. Schmitt-Strecker: Metallurgica Anti-
qua, ed. by Th. Rehren, A. Hauptmann and J. D. Muhly, Der
Fig. 13. SEM photomicrograph of slag 32 274 from Dariba Site 7, Anschnitt, Beiheft 8, Bochum, (1998), 123.
6) P. Meyers: Patterns and Process, ed. by L. van Zelst, Smithsonian
showing large relict potassium feldspar (dark) with Zn–
Center for Materials Research and Education, Suitland, Md, (2004),
Fe–S and PbS inclusions (bright spots) surrounded by 271.
dendritic olivine and hyalophane (grey tones) (cf the free- 7) D. R. Hook, A. Arribas Palau, P. T. Craddock, F. Molina and B.
silica slag Fig. 2). Rothenberg: Bell Beakers of the Western Mediterranean, Part 1, ed.
by W. H. Waldren and R. C. Kennard, BAR International, Series
331(i), Oxford, (1987), 147.
8) M. Bartelheim, F. Contreras Cortés, A. Moreno Onarato and E.
Pernicka: Trabajos de Prehistoria, 69 (2012), 293.
9) K. A. Yener, E. V. Sayre, E. C. Joel, H. Özbal, I. L. Barnes and R.
H. Brill: J. Arch. Sci., 18 (1991), 541.
10) L. Willies: Bull. Peak District Mines Hist. Soc., 10 (1987), 81.
11) O. P. Agrawal, H. Narain and J. Prakash: J. Hist. Met. Soc., 24
(1990), 81.
12) C. E. Conophagos: Le Laurion Antique et la Technique Grecque de
la Production del’Argent, Ekdotike Hellados, Athens, (1980).
13) E. Photos-Jones and J. Jones: BSA, 89 (1994), 307.
14) Th. Rehren, D. Vanhove and H. Mussche: Metalla, 9 (2002), 27.
15) P. T. Craddock: Acta Congresso Tartesso, ed. by J. Alvar and J. M.
Campos Carrasco, Almuzara, Huelva, (2013), 231.
16) L. Willies: Bull. Peak District Mines Hist. Soc., 13 (1997), 1.
17) D. Williams: Trans. Inst. Min. Met., 59 (1950), 509.
18) L. Anguilano, Th. Rehren, W. Müller and B. Rothenberg: Archaeomet-
allurgy in Europe 2007, ed. by A. Giumlia-Mair and A. Hauptmann,
Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, Milano, (2009), 21.
19) P. T. Craddock, I. C. Freestone, N. H. Gale, N. D. Meeks, B.
Rothenberg and M. S. Tite: Furnaces and Smelting Technology in
Antiquity, ed. by P. T. Craddock and M. J. Hughes, British Museum
Fig. 14. Plot of Al2O3 against FeO for the Dariba and Agucha Occ. Paper 48, London, (1985), 199.
slags. The Dariba copper slags are post-Medieval and 20) S. Rovira and M. Hunt: 34th Int. Symp. on Archaeometry, CSIC,
their aluminium contents are lower than those in the ear- Zaragoza, (2006), 217.
21) V. Kassianidou: Mining and Metal Production through the Ages, ed.
lier silver lead slags as they tend to have come from the
by P. T. Craddock and J. Lang, British Museum Publications,
calc silicates rather than the graphite schists. London, (2003), 198.
22) V. Kassianidou, B. Rothenberg and P. Andrews: ARX, World J.
Prehistoric Ancient Stud., 1 (1995), 17.
nic and antimony there is a strong possibility that a viscous 23) P. T. Craddock: Engineering and Technology in the Classical World,
layer of iron arsenides and antimonides will form in the fur- ed. by J. P. Oleson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, (2008), 94.
24) J. Cribb: South Asian Archaeology 1983, ed. by J. Schotsmans and
nace, known as speiss. This is a problem in itself but unfor- M. Taddei, Istituto Universitario Orientale Series Minor 23, Naples,
tunately speiss absorbs the forming silver and thus there is (1985), 35.
25) J. Cribb: South Asian Stud., 19 (2003), 1.
a considerable potential loss. Fragments of speiss occur fre- 26) P. Prasad and N. Ahmad: Archaeometallurgy in India, ed. by V.
quently in the slag heaps at Rio Tinto and usually contain Tripathi, Sharada Publishing House, Delhi, (1998), 184.
several thousand ppm of silver, but in one area well away 27) P. T. Craddock, I. C. Freestone, L. K. Gurjar, A. P. Middleton and L.
Willies: 2000 Years of Zinc and Brass, ed. by P. T. Craddock, British
from the main heaps, large amounts of speiss are found Museum, London, (1998), 27.
which is almost silver free, together with slags that are very 28) P. T. Craddock, C. Cartwright, K. Eckstein, I. Freestone, L. Gurjar,
D. Hook, A. Middleton and L. Willies: Brit. Museum Tech. Bull., 7
rich in arsenic. From another part of the site a large partially (2013), 79.
vitrified crucible was found which had a few percent of lead 29) W. Höller and S. M. Gandhi: Can. Mineral., 33 (1995), 1047.
and large quantities of arsenic. This was reported as evi- 30) W. Gowland: Archaeologia, 57 (1901), 359.
31) S. Rovira and M. Renzi: Acta Congresso Tarteso, ed. by J. M. Campos
dence for the treatment of the speiss to recover the silver.34) Caerrasco and J. Alvar Ezquerra, Almuzara, Huelva, (2013), 473.
Subsequently it was suggested that the crucible was in fact 32) P. T. Craddock: Instrumentum, 24 (2006), 40.
33) E. Izawa: Metallurgy and Civilisation, ed. by J. Mei and Th. Rehren,
a cupel,35) but reanalysis of the original sample confirms the Archetype Publications, London, (2009), 163.
relatively low lead content and the high arsenic, incompati- 34) P. T. Craddock, I. C. Freestone and M. Hunt Ortiz: IAMS Bull., 10
(1987), 8.
ble with use as a cupel.15) 35) V. Kassianidou: Metallurgica Antiqua, ed. by T. Rehren, A. Hauptman
Man’s quest for silver from the earliest times has involved and J. D. Muhly, Der Anschnitt, Beiheft 8, Bochum, (1999), 69.

© 2014 ISIJ 1092