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SUMMARY:A New Way of Making Silver: Experiments in Medieval Islamic Metall
 urgy based on the Manuscript of Al-Hamdani - Stephen Merkel\, Vrije Univer
 siteit Amsterdam
DTSTART:20221021T121500Z
DTEND:20221021T130000Z
UID:TALK185300@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Taylor Peacock
DESCRIPTION:Large-scale minting of early Islamic silver coins (8th-10th ce
 nturies AD) helped to fuel economic growth across Eurasia and North Africa
 . Until recently\, this silver was thought to have come from the extensive
  mining of lead-based ore\, but the discovery of matte (sulfide) inclusion
 s in pure unalloyed silver dirhams disproves this theory\, as sulfides to 
 not survive the process required to separate silver from lead. It points t
 o the parallel existence of an extractive technology for rich silver miner
 als that did not utilize lead. These findings overturn long-standing assum
 ptions about the history of silver metallurgy\, but it also raises practic
 al questions concerning the control of purity. It was long believed that t
 he only way to purify silver in ancient times used lead (cupellation). Clo
 se study of the treatise of Al-Hamdani (Arabia 10th cent. AD) reveals a hi
 therto unknown purification process and provides an explanation. The resul
 ts of experimental reconstruction and the process’ wider implications fo
 r the study of silver will be presented.\n\nAlso available on zoom.
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research\, D
 owning Site
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