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Microscopy and elemental analysis of ore, slag, ceramic and ash from a major metallurgical site have allowed insights into the ancient processes. Constraints have been placed on raw materials and smelting conditions, and aspects of technological change and development have been recognised.

This paper reports on a brief survey of some old copper and lead workings along the Benue Rift in SE Nigeria. Samples of lead and copper ores collected from these were analyzed to determine their lead isotope ratios for comparison with lead isotope ratios obtained from the bronzes excavated at Igbo- Ukwu. At many of these locations small-scale workings are still in operation. The lead isotope ratios of a small selection of the bronzes suggest that there were two distinct sources of copper and lead used in antiquity but with a high degree of intermixing. The major copper and lead source has lead isotope values similar to those obtained from the copper and lead ores from the Abakaliki area of the Rift. These results support arguments previously advanced that the metal used to make the bronzes was local, thereby confirming their indigenous design and technology.

What is a fake and why are fakes made? Did the forgers of the Turin Shroud and Piltdown Man have the same motives? Does a famous Vermeer cease to be beautiful when it turns out to be a Van Meegeren? Is the Piranesi Vase an eighteenth-century masterpiece or a faked-up antique? Fakes, argue the contributors to this volume, have always been unjustly neglected, especially given the unparalleled evidence they provide of the values and perceptions of both those who make them and those who commission them.Included in this major survey of fakes and forgeries from ancient Babylonia to the present day are more than 600 objects from the British Museum and other outstanding collections. There are spectacular fakes once hailed as masterpieces of ancient and modern art. There are musical instruments and manuscripts, Chinese bronzes and Chelsea porcelain. There are literary and documentary frauds and political forgeries that have changed the course of history. Both the methods of making fakes and the recent scientific advances in their detection are described, but many puzzles remain. The book concludes with a discussion of intriguing cases like the Vinland Map, the "Aztec" rock-crystal skull, and the mysterious discoveries at Glozel, which continue to perplex curator, historian, and scientist alike.

Lead and zinc mines in Rajasthan, India, were examined, in relation to, especially, the early use of zinc as a metal. Carbon dates of circa 2000 years before present established Zawar as the world's oldest zinc mines. Large‐scale mining for lead at Rajpura‐Dariba goes back to circa 3000 years before present. Major features found are described, emphasising the considerable scale of operations, and methods used.

Atomic absorption spectrometry is used to analyse both major elements and trace elements in archaeological objects - schemes of analysis are described for ancient metals and silicate-based materials, based on samples of material drilled or abraded from the object.

On the basis of recent studies on sites of ores extraction, metallic production and artefact elaboration as well as on numerous tools, weapons, ingots... from Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine, Anatolia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, different authors demonstrate how the problems of metallurgy may be looked after to-day, and which kind of results cornes out. So, it appears that production, exchange and use of metals take place in a synthetic vision of the history of ancient technology and its socio-cultural implications., Présentées par leurs auteurs, les études les plus récentes portant sur les sites d'extraction du minerai, de production métallique ou d'élaboration d'objets en métal ainsi que sur de nombreux outils, armes, lingots... provenant d'Egypte, Chypre, Palestine, Syrie, Iraq, Anatolie, Iran, mettent en évidence un renouvellement des questions et des résultats sur la métallurgie moyen-orientale. Il apparaît ainsi que la production, l'échange et l'utilisation des métaux s'intègrent dans une vision générale de l'histoire de la technologie ancienne et de ses implications socio-culturelles., Berthoud Thierry, Craddock Paul T., Hauptmann Andreas, Maddin Robert, Muhly James David, Pigott Vincent C., Stech-Wheeler Tamara, Weisgerber Gerd. Production, échange et utilisation des métaux : bilan et perspectives des recherches archéométriques récentes dans le domaine oriental. In: Paléorient, 1980, vol. 6. pp. 99-127.

Zinc was made and used at a much earlier date in the East than in Europe. A preliminary survey has been made of the extensive remains of the ancient zinc mines and smelting remains at Zawar, Rajasthan. From the survey and the preliminary investigation, some attempt is made to reconstruct the original process.

Jovanovič has recently drawn attention to the early copper mine at Rudna Glava in the copper mining area of Maidanpek-Bor in Eastern Serbia (Jovanovič 1979, 103). This copper deposit has iron associated with it. In some respects this occurrence of iron and copper together compares with the deposit at Phalabora in South Africa where copper and other minerals are mined today. Rudna Glava has been a copper mine in the Chalcolithic period and an iron mine in the Turkish period. Today it is worked out, but the working of the iron ore has left exposed some of the shafts and galleries used by Chalcolithic and Bronze Age copper miners. It has been possible to obtain a sample of the copper ores used in the early periods and integrate them into a smelting programme (Tylecote et al. 1977, 305), the main purpose of which has been to determine the partitioning of the three elements between the ore, the slag and the metal. The object of this exercise was to try and relate the artefacts, the slag, and metal to the ore source. So far, ores from the British Isles, Spain, and Africa have been examined and reported (Tylecote 1977). The sample from Yugoslavia came rather too late for the first report but the work is continuing.The smelting work described in this report was carried out by Ali Ghaznavi and the analyses were kindly made by R. Hetherington formerly of Newcastle University and Dr P. T. Craddock of the British Museum Research Laboratory. I have to thank Dr B. Jovanovič of the Archaeological Institute, Belgrade, for supplying the material and inspiring the work.

In 1971 a joint programme of research into the history, architecture and archaeology of the now ruined Abbey was organised under the direction of Dr. A. T. Luttrell, then Assistant Director of the British School at Rpme. The historical survey, by Dr. Luttrell with assistance from Miss Ishbel Adams, and the architectural study of the existing remains, by Dr. F. K. B. Toker, have already been published (Luttrell, Toker and Adams, 1972: cited below as Part I). The preface to that report sets out the aims of the whole project and its background. The archaeological excavations were planned to supply information about those parts of the Abbey's structure no longer visible above ground, the earlier stages of its construction, and concerning the life of its inhabitants; it was also hoped that from the pottery found in the excavations a local ceramic series might be constructed. The excavations were carried out on behalf of the British School at Rome, in 1971 and 1972 under the direction of Hugo Blake assisted by Tom Blagg, and in 1973 under the direction of Tom Blagg, who has been responsible for editing the present report.

The composition of the bronzes excavated at Igbo-Ukwu in south-eastern Nigeria, radiocarbon dated around the 10th century AD, was shown to be exceptional for the time, and to be unusual in the high silver content. In some samples the isotopic ratios of the lead content were determined, as well as of some ore samples from the lead-zinc-copper field of the Benue Rift these sources are within 100 kilometers and show signs of ancient exploitation. The result of the analyses increases the probability that the copper of the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes was derived from within Nigeria and not from further afield, as was formerly supposed.

This paper is the first of four parts dealing with the composition of copper alloys used in the classical world. In this paper there is a discussion of previous analytical work and the use to which the analytical data may be put. For published compositional analyses to be of use it is essential that details of the sampling, analytical procedure and standard deviation of the results be reported. The reasons for this are discussed in detail with examples from literature where failure to do this has made the interpretation of the reported analytical results difficult if not impossible. In this part of the work the composition of about 300 Bronze Age and Geometric Greek bronzes are reported. The data are arranged chronologically within broad limits, and further subdivided typologically. There is a discussion of the results of each group from which it is possible to discern trends in metal composition. The composition of individual objects is also discussed where it is of importance or unusual.

This is the third of a series of papers dealing with the composition of copper alloys used in the classical world. Although a few isolated examples of prehistoric copper alloys containing several per cent of zinc are known, notably from Cyprus, it was not until the first millennium BC that the deliberate production of brass commenced, probably in Asia Minor. From the 7th century the Greeks commented upon brass, but always as an expensive, exotic metal not produced in Greece, and this is borne out by the absence of zinc in the great majority of Greek bronzes. Similarly, of the many Etruscan bronzes analysed, only two from the 5th and 3rd centuries BC respectively were of brass and these contained about 11% zinc with less than 3% tin (see below). By the 1st century BC the Romans were using the cementation process for producing brass. Initially it seems to have been used for coinage, but rapidly became popular in other fields, especially decorative metalwork where it largely replaced bronze. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD the zinc content of the coinage fell, and brasses with a high zinc content ceased to be used, although brass continued to be as popular as ever accounting for about 30% of Roman copper alloys. By the 3rd century an alloy of copper with a few per cent each of lead, zinc and tin (modern “leaded gunmetal”) was in regular use, and has remained so ever since. From the time of the King James Bible of 1611 in which all copper alloys are called “brass” irrespective of composition, the early development and use of brass has been confused, and learned books, both ancient and modern have often tended to increase rather than decrease this confusion! The origins of both terms “Brass” and bronze are obscure, but it seems that in medieval times brass was applied to all copper alloys, and only from the Renaissance the term bronzo was used in Italy to denote copper alloys specifically alloyed with tin. However the terms continued indiscriminately in use in England until the 19th century; Johnson defines bronze as brass in his Dictionary. However amongst the many works on the subject, those by Caley (1964) and Werner (1972) are very useful and shed much light on what is otherwise a rather dark area. By combining the information in these books with the new analyses, particularly those of the Roman period to be published in subsequent parts of this work, a much more complete picture of the early history of brass from its inception until the end of the Roman Empire can be built up. For the purposes of this review brass is taken to mean an alloy of copper to which zinc has been deliberately introduced. In pre-Roman brasses the zinc normally replaces tin, but in Roman brass the two metals are often both present in the alloy.

The scientific and alchemic work of the Islamic period was firmly rooted in the traditions of the classical world. In this paper the alloys used by the Islamic metalsmiths are described with special reference to the preceding Roman metalwork. The principal change was from bronze to brass as the usual alloy, but some alloys (notably heavily leaded metal) continue to be produced. Some more unusual alloys have been encountered in this study and can be compared to alloys from Medieval Europe or China, and the writings of the alchemists and technologists.

Samples from most of the known ancient flint mines and quarries in Britain were analyzed, together with over 400 axes. The results confirm that the axes were made from non-local flint, but suggest that it may not be possible to assign individual axes to particular sources. Overall trends indicate the flint axe production was concentrated in South Downs mines, other large sites elsewhere producing very few axes. East Anglia had a high percentage of unprov enanced axes suggesting that there may be as yet undiscovered flint mines in that region.

This paper is the second dealing with the composition of copper alloys used by the Greeks. About 500 analyses of Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic objects are published here pp. 117–123 together with comments upon the alloys used. The data are arranged chronologically within broad limits and further subdivided typologically. The techniques of sampling and analysis are discussed in depth in the first part of this project (Craddock, 1976) . The development of casting technology is one of the principal features of bronze-working during this period. Our knowledge of Greek casting technology comes both from archaeological excavation and from a careful examination of the castings themselves. Evidence from these sources has been brought together here for the first time together with the comments of medieval, renaissance, and modern technical authors to attempt a coherent picture of the way the superb Greek bronzes were produced and adorned. It was during this period that the Greeks started using mercury gilding on copper and bronze; and the techniques and range of gilded metal are discussed.

The first part of this work (Craddock 1985) critically examined the uses to which analyses of West African metalwork have been put and suggested other possible significance against the background of increased knowledge of the smelting technology and alloys used in Europe and the Middle East during the last 1500 years. The second part is devoted to the composition and metalworking techniques of some of the bronzes and brasses from Nigeria and the implications for their art history.

This paper describes the uses of phosphate analysis as a means of locating and interpreting archaeological sites based on ten years fieldwork principally in East Anglia. Practical details of the sample collection and on-site analytical procedure are given together with a discussion of how phosphate analysis can be successfully integrated with other survey techniques such as aerial photography, magnetometer surveys, fieldwalking, and especially soil magnetism to provide maximum information retrieval from the soil.The project began as a purely locational exercise, but following success in finding occupation not revealed by other techniques, the phosphate content of the soil was used in an interpretative role. It was soon realized that the phosphate content of the undisturbed archaeology was reliably reflected in the topsoil and that, coupled with the survey techniques mentioned above, a great deal of information could be derived from the ploughsoil (Clark 1983) and as Clark (1977) had previously demonstrate...

This paper is a statistical and geological study of the results of analysis of flint from British and West European flint mines, carried out by emission and atomic absorption spectroscopy. Groups of flint specimens were studied from each geographically separate flint mining area. Flints were analysed for a group of easily measured trace elements shown by previous work to be generally present. The ratios between the trace elements form a consistent pattern for each flint mine and statistically valid differences of pattern can be recognized between different flint mines. A geological investigation shows that the measured trace elements may be derived from clay minerals and explains geographical and statistical variation in the composition of flint in terms of its mode of origin in the chalk. An advanced statistical technique allows individual flint specimens of unknown origin to be attributed by their composition to one or other of the identified flint sources. The archaeological implications of this study are discussed.

This study of the Abbey of San Paolo di Valdiponte, also known as the Abbazia or Badia Celestina, is the work of a group collaborating under the general direction of Dr. Anthony Luttrell, who is responsible for the overall co-ordination of the project. The participants have discussed each other's sections, while remaining responsible for their own contributions. The original survey of the site was made by Miss Margaret Browne, with the assistance of Miss Sheila Rixon; Figs. 2 and 3 are based upon Margaret Browne's plans, while Figs. 4, 5 and 6 are the work of Domenico Minchilli. Figs. 2, 4, 5 and 6 were prepared in their final form by M. C. Wright. The excavations, directed by Hugo Blake and Tom Blagg, are not complete. A detailed report of the seasons 1971, 1972 and 1973, accompanied by further plans, a description of the finds and a discussion of the pottery, will be published in the second part of this study; meanwhile, the present authors have been able to make full use of Hugo Blake's draft report and plans. The architecture has been studied and described by Dr. Franklin Toker, who also participated in the excavations and conducted research in archives and galleries.

Lost continents, lost cities and fabulous materials from past ages have a natural fascination for scholar and layman alike. Since the Renaissance, men have sought examples of Corinthian Bronze, the precious alloy much extolled by antient writers and have tried to establish its nature. As indicative of attitudes towards it, Thomas Corayte (1) described the bronze horses of San Marco in Venice as being 'a remarkable monument, four goodly brazen horses of Corinthian metal and fully as great as life' , apparently for no better reason than that he thought such noble statuary demanded the most prized bronze metal of them all. Further, in Pliny's 'Natural History' (the Loeb edition, translated by Rackham (2), is referred to throughout this article), Book XXXIV, which is devoted to copper and bronze, begins with Corinthian Bronze which is referred to as 'valued before silver and almost even before gold'. In a later passage, in Chapter 3, Pliny writes as follows

Trace element analyses of flint show statistically valid differences between products of major British and European Neolithic flint mines.

Mesopotamia was predominantly populated by Arabs and is often called in classical literature Arabia.19 In Aramaic the population were cArbdyA, 'the Arabs', and the region Bet cArbayE, 'the home of the Arabs'. In the narrow sense, the province of cArbaywas the fourth-century diocese centred on Nisibis, appearing later in Middle Persian as the Sassanian province of Arabistan.20 Arbeia, the non-Celtic place name in Britain associated with a unit of Mesopotamian lighter-men, and cArbdyd and cArbayE the ethnic and the regional name associated with the region between the Tigris and Nisibis is surely more than mere coincidence. Whether the barcarii named their base after their home-land or themselves, or whether the place-name derived, like Astura and Commagena, from an ethnic which formed part of the full name of the unit is, at present, unknown. A problem remains. One has to assume either that these Arab barcarii were settled on a new site and hence Arbeia cannot be South Shields, or at least the known fort there or else they successfully replaced with their own choice whatever name South Shields bore while garrisoned in earlier periods. A possible explanation may lie in the suggestion of Rivet and Smith that South Shields may be one of the sites in Britain called simply Horrea Classis.21 So colourless a name would easily be superseded.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a debilitating illness associated with a constellation of other symptoms. While the most common symptom is unrelenting fatigue, many individuals also report suffering from rhinitis, dry eyes and a sore throat. Mucin proteins are responsible for contributing to the formation of mucosal membranes throughout the body. These mucosal pathways contribute to the body's defense mechanisms involving pathogenic onset. When compromised by pathogens the epithelium releases numerous cytokines and enters a prolonged state of inflammation to eradicate any particular infection. Based on genetic analysis, and computational theory and modeling we hypothesize that mucin protein dysfunction may contribute to ME/CFS symptoms due to the inability to form adequate mucosal layers throughout the body, especially in the ocular and otolaryngological pathways leading to low grade chronic inflammation and the exacerbation of symptoms., Competing Interests: Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.