KEROS - Kavos, Dhaskalio - 2011

Keros. M. Georgakopoulou (BSA) reports on a study of metal production at Early Bronze Age Keros, focused on finds from the recent excavations. Although Keros appears devoid of ore resources, a small smelting site for both pure and arsenical copper was identified on the Kavos promontory, north of the Special Deposits. Significant evidence for metalworking and metal consumption was recovered from all three settlement phases at Dhaskalio, (Fig. 1) with the great majority coming from the best documented final phase. Frequent copper spills, (Fig. 2) tuyères and some metallurgical ceramics, probably from crucibles and moulds, testify to copper working, and a litharge fragment suggests that cupellation was also practiced. The excavated contexts date to the later Early Bronze Age, when tin-bronze was already known in the Cyclades; yet most copper-based artefacts at Keros were of arsenical copper, with very few tin-bronzes among the analysed finds. (Fig. 3) As at other contemporary sites in the southern Aegean, most copper artefacts are consistent with Cycladic sources, while the tin-bronze is incompatible with an Aegean provenance. The almost total absence of metal from the Special Deposits South and North suggests that despite the metal-rich character of the settlement, metal was not among the ‘prestige’ artefacts deposited on Kavos.