High Quality Copper Content

Geologist, Metallurgist, and Avid History Nerd Blog for my long-form academic interests

[iamthepulta]

@casperwyomingxer

I don't know much about REEs, so take this with the appropriate grain of salt; I'll include links to all the papers and we'll see where this goes at the end, lol.

"Ion adsorption-type" REE deposits are when granites with high quantities of REEs (hosted in fluorocarbonates, allanite, and titanite) weather. The REE-minerals are dissolved by acidic groundwater and the REE 3+ ions travel along the weathering profile until there's a pH increase. They typically adsorb to the surface of kaolinite and halloysite or other Mn oxides/cerianite. [1]

Leaching occurs with "concentrated inorganic salt solutions". This paper says they started with tank-leaching HCl and the most common, older process is ammonium-sulfate which moved to heap leaching in the 1990s. Dissolved REEs are selectively precipitated with oxalic acid to form oxalates that are converted to REO via an oxidizing roast. The REOs are separated with HCl and fractional solvent extraction.

Oh wow, 90% REE extraction. That's extremely good. And oh my god, they want to move it to in-situ and switch to MgSO34 to improve Mg deficiency in the soil. Based, based, based, based, based. Dude, China is so ahead of these things it's not even funny. That's the exact tactic we should be taking for this sort of thing. 5-7% loss REE is nothing if you're improving the quality of the soil/material while you're at it. [2] We'll just overlook the years of soil degradation while using ammonium-sulfate, lol.

Huh, in 2021, the German Bundestag passed a law on corporate due diligence in supply chains to protect human rights and the environment. Based.

Okay, it looks like the environmental impact of the clay leaching, from this paper, relies heavily on whether they clean up the ammonium-sulfate used in the process. In copper in-situ leaching, it's part of the remediation process to pump water into the area so that the whole area is "rinsed" and no pollution occurs. There are also legal standards on monitoring and recovery wells that ensure no acid is escaping the pump zone itself while mining is ongoing. It looks like a lot of REE-ISL operations are mined illegally though, so there are both no quantities on the amount of pollution and no oversight to ensure it isn't happening. [3] Damn, there are even bioleaching agents for this. [5]

Looking at the properties of ammonium sulfate, it's extremely stable up to 280C, unlike cyanide, which is extremely unstable. It has a pH of about 5.5. It is used as a fertilizer though, because of the high nitrate wt%; so it kind of depends how much is going where. [4] The primary risks of ammonium sulfate pollution are soil acidification and groundwater contamination. It seems you can wash the ammonium sulfate with magnesium sulfate (or magnesium chloride) and that also does the trick. However, when you wash clay shit multiple times, lo and behold, it destabilizes the ground. So they're now concerned about landslides. This paper looks at the viability of a papermaking sulfo-organic byproduct to wash residual ammonium sulfate instead. [6]

(This paper was more hidden than the others: Qiuhua et al 2016: 10.11785/S1000-4343.20160602)

Cyanides are typically detoxified after leaching by oxidizing the cyanide, adding sulfite, H2SO5, or hydrogen peroxide, or bacteria. Primary pollution stems from cyanide going where it isn't wanted in the leach heap and drainage from legacy mining sites where the waste wasn't detoxed. The most dangerous forms of cyanide are HCN (gas) and CN- (liquid). When it forms strong complexes like FeCN, CoCN, or AuCN, or oxidized, it's fairly benign and decomposes under sunlight. [7] As I'm looking at the techniques for monitoring (a note more for myself than anything else) it's really hard to determine how much cyanide is in a sample. There are a dozen methods and only half of them seem to work in specific situations, and they can still be miscalibrated by the presence of volatile metals like Hg, Bi, and Ge. Very unpleasant scientifically. I hate metals that think they have a right to be gases.

The summation of all of this, is that you either want extremely stable cyanide metal compounds (unpleasant but if you're going to put them into the ground, they better be stable); or you want any ions released with accessibility to air, plants, and people in general to be as volatile as possible, so that aeration and sunlight exposure are maximized and both C and N break down into harmless gases. (Typically a variation of CO / NCO or NH. [8] [9])

-=-

In my mind, (and this is personal opinion, so YMMV) the least damaging method is the method that doesn't stick around.

Cyanide definitely has more acute toxicity, and after reading, I don't like the variations of soluble compounds it can form in groundwater. If cyanide isn't exposed to sunlight, it also takes some time for plants to break down the compounds into gaseous form. BUT the fact that when oxidized it breaks down quickly is a huge win for me.

Ammonium sulfate is less harmful than I anticipated it being, tbqh; I really like the next-best-option being MgSO4 too. But both solutions make the soil extremely acidic by having sulfur. Sulfur is also not as volatile as C or N, (or HCN), so instead of leaving the soil, even after the ammonium is scrubbed, it will make the soil and groundwater more acidic. Both compounds are clearly hard to control when used in-situ too and stick in the clays since the ions are being swapped.

My position on this could change though. Ammonium sulfate is clearly what artisanal mercury mining was/is for gold at the moment. NH4(SO4) used responsibly by large operations that clean up after themselves isn't as big an issue. Sulfur can be oxidized into solution (quite easily) so the soil can be detoxified just like cyanide; it's just a little more effort to do.

But if cleaning isn't addressed, ammonium sulfate has more long-term ramifications on soil quality, groundwater quality, algae blooms, and metallic toxicity that are just as bad if not worse than cyanide when it doesn't break down.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

5,400-Year-Old Gold Mine at Sakdrisi, in Georgia (South Caucasus): this is the world's oldest known gold mine, with mining operations dating back to 3400 BCE; sadly, most of the site was destroyed by a Russian mining company in 2014

This site was mentioned in one of my previous posts, but I wanted to provide a little more information.

The prehistoric gold mine at Sakdrisi dates back to about 3400-3000 BCE, which makes this the oldest gold mine ever discovered. It's located in modern-day Georgia, nestled between Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

As this article explains:

Sakdrisi is a complex of four mines categorised into four areas and covering about 60 hectares. The complex comprised mining shafts between 3 and 5 meters wide, transitional corridors, and pits. One of the prehistoric workings reached a depth of 27 meters (88.5 feet).

Secure radiocarbon samples clearly indicate that Kura-Araxes miners exploited the gold from the mid-fourth to mid-third millennium BC, making Sakdrisi the oldest known gold mine in the world. Later miners re-worked the old deposits in the fourth and fifth centuries, but were not as intrepid as their prehistoric forebears.

The same article goes on to describe how the gold was extracted:

Mining at Sakdrisi involved a lot of hard work. In the first instance, the miners used fire to crack the extremely hard matrix in which the gold is embedded. Experiments demonstrated that the miners would have left the galleries after lighting a fire — small pieces of wood were probably laid against the wall - to avoid the noxious fumes and, when the air cleared, they pounded the walls of the mine with heavy, hafted hammer stones, leaving tell-tale hollows. Tools varied according to the task, from heavy mallets to finer implements, such as antler picks, used to extract deposits in narrow cracks. The next stage involved hand sorting and crushing the ore, which was finally milled to a powder.

Estimates have suggested that the industrious miners exploited somewhere between 500 and 1000 kg of gold at Sakdrisi in the course of its lifetime.

Sadly, most of the prehistoric mine at Sakdrisi was destroyed back in 2014, when the Georgian government decided to revoke the site's protected status and then allowed a Russian gold mining company (RMG Gold) to begin mining the site.

Sources & More Info:

The Archaeology of the Caucasus from the Earliest Settlements to the Iron Age: Mining for Metal and Ore

Archaeo Sciences: Bronze Age Gold in Southern Georgia

Europa Nostra: Appeal to Stop the Destruction of an Important Archaeological Site in Georgia

National Geographic: Treasure of the Caucasus

Saunje: The Gold Mine of Sakdrisi and the Earliest Mining and Metallurgy in Transcaucasia

Democracy and Freedom Watch: What was Lost when a Mining Company Destroyed the Ancient Sakdrisi Mine?

[cufes2]

Silver mining as the economic basis of Kutna Hora, Czech Rep., early 1400s AD - Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region, Kutna Hora

(reddit)

[cufes2]

Very wide-scope review of the metallurgy in pre-Columbian America!

[cufes2]

Thank you for your thorough answer for my ask on mining in art history, and I'm glad you had fun! Coincidentally I was browsing De Re Metallica on archive.org before sending you the ask.

I had come across Sedukhin's Symphony on here, and I love it. He also has a beautiful painting of an open pit mine.

I'm very fond of technical drawings, especially the older ones. Like you said, it's as if their artistic aspect were incidental. I've found two books (again, on archive.org) that might interest you: La vie souterraine, ou, Les mines et les mineurs and Évolution de la fonderie de cuivre. I think they're both amazing. The first one has a lot of geological illustrations, and the second one reproduces a lot of De Re Metallica figures, but has a lot more, including the illustrations found on the Énciclopedie.

I sent you the ask because I'm thinking about starting a blog on Substack and I was looking for an icon, lol. Like I said, I'm very interested in mining history, and I'm from a traditional mining region, the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil (which translates to English as "General Mines"). Artwork related to mining were also produced here, especially in the 18th century, when the state was created by the Portuguese crown to organize the gold exploration. Most of this art would be considered state-sponsored, like you said, but we can at least attribute authorship to some of it. Unfortunately, most of it is sparse and kinda hard to find online.

Sorry for the delay on this answer! Those books sound amazing! I haven't gotten the chance to look through them, but will do so when I have more time. Same with Minas Gerais. I wasn't able to do a thorough search, and those deposit types aren't my specialty, so I don't know the key words that would bring up processing diagrams; but I gathered some potentially interesting papers in the drive below. I saw a few photos of sites, but no art other than one or two named artists. Sorry I can't be more help!

However, if you are interested, I have a friend who's doing a thesis in art history as well as geology, and she thinks she might have more sources/information. She's on a research discord server I run with a couple of friends, and you're more than welcome to join if you'd like. All of us are geologists with different interests, and we'd all be interested in seeing what you find/helping if we see anything interesting. However, I totally get not coming off anon. xD So otherwise, I'll just keep an eye open and post on the blog if I find any other sources/she knows anything specific. :)

[iamthepulta]

Additional collections I'm aware of but might not help you in your specific search: The Getty archives; Harvard archives (both seem to contain more photographs than paintings/drawings)

Landscapes of Extraction: (the book is actually $10 if anyone is interested in ordering it from the museum; they're trying to clear out storage. Just search "Landscapes of Extraction phx")

Revisiting the Potosi Principle Archive. Put on by the Institute for Studies of Latin American Art.

Techniques and Art of Columbian Extraction (Link)

The Minereo Museum might have the most expansive selection of what you're looking for (although I'm sure you've already dug through it.) Linked just in case.

I was very impressed at the amount of images/descriptions in "The Metalsmiths" Percy Knauth, The Emergence of Man series. They did some digitization of Egyptian drawings, although I know a few of those are available on the web. Might be a good place to start.

Page of digital art archives you can search though (might be promising individually) (link)

-=-

Individual Artists: (asked friends, lol)

Gustave Corbet (The Stonebreakers (maybe more?))

Francisco Mora

Manuel Maria Paz Delgado

[cufes2]

Thank you for your thorough answer for my ask on mining in art history, and I'm glad you had fun! Coincidentally I was browsing De Re Metallica on archive.org before sending you the ask.

I had come across Sedukhin's Symphony on here, and I love it. He also has a beautiful painting of an open pit mine.

I'm very fond of technical drawings, especially the older ones. Like you said, it's as if their artistic aspect were incidental. I've found two books (again, on archive.org) that might interest you: La vie souterraine, ou, Les mines et les mineurs and Évolution de la fonderie de cuivre. I think they're both amazing. The first one has a lot of geological illustrations, and the second one reproduces a lot of De Re Metallica figures, but has a lot more, including the illustrations found on the Énciclopedie.

I sent you the ask because I'm thinking about starting a blog on Substack and I was looking for an icon, lol. Like I said, I'm very interested in mining history, and I'm from a traditional mining region, the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil (which translates to English as "General Mines"). Artwork related to mining were also produced here, especially in the 18th century, when the state was created by the Portuguese crown to organize the gold exploration. Most of this art would be considered state-sponsored, like you said, but we can at least attribute authorship to some of it. Unfortunately, most of it is sparse and kinda hard to find online.

Sorry for the delay on this answer! Those books sound amazing! I haven't gotten the chance to look through them, but will do so when I have more time. Same with Minas Gerais. I wasn't able to do a thorough search, and those deposit types aren't my specialty, so I don't know the key words that would bring up processing diagrams; but I gathered some potentially interesting papers in the drive below. I saw a few photos of sites, but no art other than one or two named artists. Sorry I can't be more help!

However, if you are interested, I have a friend who's doing a thesis in art history as well as geology, and she thinks she might have more sources/information. She's on a research discord server I run with a couple of friends, and you're more than welcome to join if you'd like. All of us are geologists with different interests, and we'd all be interested in seeing what you find/helping if we see anything interesting. However, I totally get not coming off anon. xD So otherwise, I'll just keep an eye open and post on the blog if I find any other sources/she knows anything specific. :)

[cufes2]

Hi. So, I'm also very interested in mining history, and I was wondering if you have some references, suggestions, ideas etc. about mining in art. I'm under the impression that this is an economic activity very underrepresented generally in art, but of course, there's a lot of interesting exceptions out there, and I just wanted to get to know those exceptions, without any particular preference for period, place or medium. Thanks!

FANTASTIC QUESTION.

So you are correct, that this is generally under-represented in art, but the first images that come to mind, are Symphony of the 6th Blast Furnace, Evgeny Sedukhin and a massive oil painting of the Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah that I can't find on cursory search. There's also a lovely watercolor of the Tolsa alum mine, Italy, and several notable hand-worked mining diagrams in De Re Metallica that are some of the earlier technical process diagrams we have.

In my research, I've found that there are more images than are available on a quick search. They're usually from a particular artist who wasn't intending to stay at the mine, but did so for economic, or travel reasons, and sketched while they were there. For a literary example: Roughin' It, by Mark Twain, which is his depiction of a Nevada gold mine during the late 1900s. Typically a one-off work of art that paints a realistic outsider's perspective. These often double as landscape portraits. The Bingham Canyon Mine painting I'm thinking of had birch trees and original mountainside in the lower left corner, contrasted with the massive expanse of the mine itself. These typically fall into an environmentalist category, but may also not.

Small, unknown art by the miners themselves is rare and even more difficult to find. However, the images are often more personable, closer, i.e. something like Thomas Williams' coal miner paintings. Focused on the miner, their lives, and interactions with and within the mine.

^ These are artist-focused artworks. The other variety of mining/processing art we see, is state-sponsored art, which falls in the realm of propaganda, except it's just so beautiful it's hard not to see a sense of passion from the artist within them (usually depends if the painting is a one-off or a series). This is what Symphony of the 6th Blast Furnace falls into, where these series of paintings were encouraged by the Soviet state and come with a sense of grandiosity. We see more landscapes, but they often include the processing plant and human aspects of the mine (town/roads/scale) not just the hole in the ground. It's more a work de Triomphe. Often stylized.

Last but not least, technical mining diagrams are so delightful, and their importance is often diminished. De Re Metallica is one of the first "textbooks" we see of mining, for miners. It covers exploration and processing, as well as mine de-watering and mechanical methods. The diagrams are often spatially unrealistic (warped sense of distance; enlarged furnace opening, variety of human scale) in order to emphasize the processes themselves as techniques. For example below, the opening to the furnace is larger than it should be in order to show the position of the crucible in relation to the dipping-pot. The man on the hillside, I think working charcoal pans?, would be totally out of the picture in reality, but is included for technical study.

These diagrams are surprisingly common, but RARELY collected in any meaningful form. The Florentine Codex which is an encyclopedia of indigenous history written in 1576 by Nahuatl and Spanish monks, shows diagrams of economic geology, metalworking, and mining. And in Egypt, we have one of the oldest examples of economic geology in the form of a geologic map/stylized image of Nubian gold on papyrus.

In my research, I've found that the best/most interesting images often come from the most unlikely sources, and that seemingly unrelated art has an economic bent beneath the surface- Because art is inherently political, right? We paint/describe what we see around us and our lives are integrated with nonrenewable resources in ways we can never escape.

One example of this are Renaissance paintings, particular those from N. Italy and Bruges. Genoa and Venice were the primary marine powers in the Mediterranean with capital flowing from shipping (or smuggling) alum from Turkey and Greece. Alum was used for making leather and dying wool at the time, which fed into the growing Renaissance hunger for fabrics. Bruges, Brussels was the selling point as a major wool producer, and we see a massive increase in both N. Italy and Bruge paintings with merchants wearing luxurious wools and silks, particularly black. Black fabric was just as expensive as white fabric at the time, since it took high, pure-quality alum to produce the desired color. This is why the Medici wore black, and high-nobility of the time often wore black if they could afford it. It was just as much a status symbol as dressing children in white.

There are also strong element of coercion in art of mining in colonies. The Potosi silver mine in Mexico was a truly horrific place of slavery and suffering. However, in depictions, we often see the Spanish linking it to images of the Virgin Mary, as an 'untapped resource' to be sought for and overwrite indigenous religion. This was another mode of artistic propaganda to convince indigenous "free"-men (in the case of Potosi) to mine for the Spanish.

If we're not talking about mining though, there's a whole other discussion on the art history of geology: what is emphasized in landscape paintings. How volcanoes are shown as forces of nature, and the differences between catastrophism and uniformitarianism as they appear in art history. Proponents of catastrophism often highlight forces of nature within their art- the power of the waterfall, the eruption of the volcano, the fall of the glacier. While uniformitarianists focus on the gradual development of the landscape: the shape of the delta, the shift of the ox-bow bend, often highlighting fossils or details within the geology of the rocks themselves.

Chemical history is also ties VERY closely with mining history as a whole, as alchemists were simply early chemists; often focused on processing what came out of the mines. This is also the case with early doctors and medical history, as they individually sought out minerals and organic powders and mixed them, leading to some of the first catalogued mineral collections.

If you're going to be looking for mining history's art, I highly recommend picking a particular location and finding the old mines in the area then working to find artists/archaeology in the region/at that time. This is... I wish I were suggesting an easy task, haha. All the art I've mentioned here, I've stumbled upon. The only one in any sort of "category" was the Bingham Canyon Mine painting which was in an art museum. However, picking a mine first will give you archaeological resources to choose from, and usually you can find some sort of art hidden in those archives.

[iamthepulta]

[iamthepulta]

SO. Most people are loosely familiar with the tale of Hades and Persephone so I won't repeat it here, but Ereshkigal and Nergal are just as cool! (Yes, if you were wondering, it is THAT Nergal. iykyk.)

Ereshkigal is the Mesopotamian goddess of the dead. She is bound to the underworld, unable to leave, the main city of which is called Irkalla. When domains were being claimed by the original (male) pantheon, she was married to the somewhat-metaphorical dragon of the underworld, with the underworld itself as her "dowry".

Ereshkigal is thus the Queen, and both accepts newly dead arrivals, mourns for them, and is in charge of their judgement and keeping them contained. The story begins when the High Gods of Heaven hold a banquet. As Ereshkigal is unable to attend herself, but must be honored in the same way, she sends a proxy, Namtar, in her stead.

When he arrives, all the High Gods bow to Namtar in equal deference as to Ereshkigal except Nergal, who refuses to bow to a proxy no matter who they represent. Spurned and offended by this callous behavior to his mistress, Namtar returns to the underworld without Ereshkigal's banquet portion and tells her of this misdeed. She then demands Nergal be sent down so she might judge and punish him.

Nergal begs for help from the High Gods, but they refuse him, except for Ea (also known by Enki, the Sumerian trickster god of wisdom and water). Ea tells him to craft a chair with the finest cedar, gold, silver, and gems, to present to Ereshkigal as a gift. And also warns him:

From the moment they bring a chair to you, do not sit upon it. When the baker brings you bread, do not eat it. When the butcher serves you meat, do not eat it. When the brewer serves you beer, do not drink it. When someone brings you water to wash your feet, do not wash them. And when she herself enters the bath, and has let you see her body, you must not let yourself become aroused and do what men and women do. (George 168)

Nergal descends through the seven gates of the underworld and arrives at Ereshkigal's palace. He presents her with the chair, and is immediately offered luxuries, food, and drink. He refuses them all, and then is shown to Ereshkigal's chambers where she bathes and offers herself nude.

Nergal refuses, and the second day, is shown all the luxuries of the underworld again. He refuses all except the last, and Nergal and Ereshkigal embrace each other passionately, fall into bed, and make love for six nights. The night of the sixth, Nergal awakes from a dream, realizes how much time has passed, and flees the underworld before Ereshkigal is awake.

When she finds him gone, Ereshkigal is heartbroken. She had intended to trap him, but found herself deeply in love. Namtar tells her to send a message through him so Nergal might return and she says thus to the High Gods:

Ever since I was a child and a daughter, I did not know the play of maidens, I did not know the romping of girls. That god whom you sent to us had intercourse with me, let him lie with me again. Send that god to us so he may be my lover and spend the night with me again. I am unclean, I am not pure, I cannot render the judgement of the great gods, The great gods who dwell within Irkalla. If you do not send that god. According to the ordinances of Irkalla and the great netherworld, I shall raise up the dead to eat the living, I shall make the dead more numerous than the livening. (Ponchia et al. 29-30, lines 308-318)

However, as this is read, Nergal disguises himself with Ea's help and does not return with Namtar. Instead, he chooses to go back to the underworld himself, of his own volition once Namtar is gone. The High Gods imbue him with his own holy symbols of divinity to hold, and Nergal doesn't loose them as he passes back through the seven gates of the underworld to Irkalla, keeping his divine power so he might meet Ereshkigal as an equal.

When he finally arrives, he pulls her from her lovely throne, embraces her as love and wife, and the two lovers go back to bed for another week. The tale ends with Ea decreeing that Ereshkigal and Nergal rule over the underworld together forever.

.

Myth Source (pg 108-126) PDF

[cufes2]

A while back, I made my research presentation into alum accessible; I was a little nervous with it being before the conference, so I kept it under request. However, the conference is now past and I have 0 desire to publish on this material. Have at it! References in the back.

Alum presentation

[cufes2]

So part of my research is looking at trace element variations in chalcopyrite. Of the given ones on the right, there's a lot of variation in quantities of tin, silver, arsenic, gallium, and uh-

Zinc, as it so happens.

No idea what's happening at Walker Mine. I need to dig a little more into it today. We also have a few more Walker Mine mounts in the making to learn more.

[iamthepulta]

I'm continuing to read about alum and it's honestly fascinating how the concept of money, commodities, and power, shifts from culture to culture.

Europe had no silver circa 500-1500 AD. It was primarily exported in from Africa and through dealings with Persia, along with the Crusades. But throughout this time, the Catholic Church was still rich and powerful, and you have all the general European bickering at the time. If hacksilver was so common and valuable metal so rare, and defrauding so common, where were displays of wealth going?

Textiles.

The pope(s) used an effective monopoly on alum to wield power throughout Europe, threatening everyone who tried to mine their own alum with excommunication. After 1486, because England had no laws on the books to support the papal alum monopoly, they became a smuggling center, waylaying Spanish ships with Spanish alum by using the papal law to uphold the monopoly, then "commandeering" the alum cargo since it was now under English rule, and England had no legislative obligation to give it back to Italy, it was now theirs and could be used for English trade.

This was, obviously, extremely lucrative.

In 1503 the pope raised the price of alum, driving the Hapsburgs into (illegal) trade with England. They helped commission two massive Tudor gunships with the concession England supply them with alum. However, as this was going on, only the crown was able to sell alum and Henry VII fined private merchants and confiscated alum not brought by his own ships or from Tolfa, Italy. This netted him even more profit.

The pope(s) were obviously less than thrilled about this, and cut Henry VII out of their most recent crusading plans, as well as temporarily retracing their papal ambassador. Henry VII did not stop though, and set his son, Henry VIII up for stunning economic success.

... which he promptly squandered by restarting alum purchases from Italy, allowing them to boycott alum sales to England when his excommunication came due.

But all in all, there's this FASCINATING hole of economic history in alum that feels completely ignored! We think of pre-Renaissance era as (or, to be clear, I was taught that-) the pre-Renaissance era was a time of mostly miserable raids and crusading. Everyone was bickering for a seat at the table; there were a lot of popes and a lot of power-grabs. But the available commodity that was changing hands in Europe was alum and most of the power was tied up in paper and textiles.

We think of textiles as work that's been overshadowed since it was done by women, but it's not just that: it's economic power has been overshadowed too. When we see "yard of wool", we should still be thinking of all the processes and industry that went into dying that material, and alum is fundamental to that trade. England's power grew on their wool industry and alum privateering. Spain's influx of silver came from their colonies- but they also were part of England's back door alum trade that allowed the rest of Europe to slip from the church's grasp.

Mounier, Aurélie, and Floréal Daniel. “Some Papal Bull: 16th Century Alum Trade and English Royal Autonomy.” Summer Research, 2020, 379.

Günster, Andrea, and Stephen Martin. “A Holy Alliance: Collusion in the Renaissance Europe Alum Market.” Review of Industrial Organization 47, no. 1 (August 2015): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11151-015-9465-0.

[iamthepulta]

I'm so tired of finding cool papers that I want to read but have no time or energy to fall down the rabbit hole.

Hell yes I want to compare Scottish and English wool trade from 1300-1600 but I came here just for a map or numeric value/conceptual analysis of the textile trade in England at the time pre-Henry VII and I'm ready to fall over actually.

[iamthepulta]

If anyone is interested, here's the alum presentation~

Google Slides doesn't like fancy fonts or backgrounds, so the text is a little plainer than intended. But the information is all there. :)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18MvAVlnsTPQ5xIhw1721QcyxiTeH2T5C/edit#slide=id.p7

(Just request access and I'll grant it~)

Only reference that might be useful that isn't on there is: Thorne, 2024: Alum, More Precious Than Gold: The Amazing Influence and Trade of Alum Across the Ages. But that's because I haven't read it. Could be a more useful summary if someone is into this.

@classicintp

[cufes2]

The desert has mushrooms!!!!

(Left) Battarea phalloides or saprophytic sandy stiltball. The sandy stiltball appears quickly following rains, most often in loose sandy soil such as that found around washes.

(Right) Podaxis pistallaris or the desert shaggy mane. Appears following rains and seems able to thrive in the most impossibly arid and barren spaces, even growing on top of anthills. Desert shaggy mane is found in deserts around the world including Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and North America.

(Left) Astreus hygrometricus, or the hygroscopic earthstar. Ectomychorrhizal: it attaches itself to the outside of tree roots in a mutually beneficial partnership where the tree provides the fungus with carbon and the fungus provides the tree with moisture and soil nutrients. This is a great trade for desert trees who are constantly searching for moisture in our dry soils.

(Right) Agaricus deserticola, does not develop true gills, but rather a convoluted and networked system of spore-producing tissue called a gleba. When the veil breaks or pulls away from the stem the blackish-brown gleba is exposed, which allows the spores to be dispersed. Fruit bodies grow singly or scattered on the ground in fields, grasslands, or arid ecosystems.

Source 1. Source 2.

[iamthepulta]

I don't want to respond to the direct post, 1) because the vote is over and it passed, 2) because I don't feel like being thorough about my commentary which means asking friends of friends at the site and looking up papers and permits. But holy cow, it keeps popping up on my dash.

1) Copper mines do not produce toxic waste. If anyone is telling you this, they're lying to you or stretching the truth, max.

1.2) If you leave a hole in the ground alone for long enough, the sulfides in the rock oxidize and produce a weak to strong acid that leaches metals. That's what they're talking about. This does not happen to active mine sites because the water in the tailings/waste is reused and must be near-neutral. Calcium is also added to neutralize the acid. When the mine is shut down, when properly closed, all surfaces are covered so this oxidation can't take place.

2) Mining on the Michigan peninsula is one of the few places we have records of pre-Columbian copper use because the copper is in native form. It's very disingenuous of them to not mention this. See here.

3) Tailings dam specifications are built with geology in mind. They're huge. I don't think people understand how big (or small) they actually can be. But essentially, the engineering specs reflect the regional qualifications of the dam. A 100-year flood build design likely reflects the overall dam but not a location near a drainage basin which would be certified to higher spec. I worked at a mine that was near a fault and the qualifications were 1.2+ factors of safety over the shake potential for that kind of fault zone. Which is how it works for all engineering designs. The design plans would not have gotten this far in the USA without three licensed engineers looking at the plans.

Anyway. Don't lie to people right over my salad. It's absolutely okay not to want a mine in your backyard. There are actual reasons to get up in arms if you feel that way. But lying to people is not the way to do it.

[iamthepulta]

♠️ How strange is it for Ea-Nasir to have kept so many of his complaints? A large part of the hearstory about Ea-Nasir here on tumblr is that the room of tablets of complaints he kept was abnormal, with the usual inference being that he was an egotistic scoundrel reveling in the displeasure of his clientele.

I'm sorry for taking so long to answer this question! I thought it would be much easier to answer than it was, haha.

This is the original archaeologist, Woolley's, original map (left), from Woolley, 1931. I've overlain the map with different colors (right), (mine) to hopefully alleviate confusion. [1]

What is known as Ea-Nasir's house, is called No. I Old Street (Grey). The main entrance is Grey-Room 1, which opens to an open courtyard. Grey-Room 5 and Grey-Room 6 both contain altars. Grey-Room 4 is small, beneath a staircase, and contains a drain. The courtyard also contains a drain and a earthen "box" near a kitchen area in Grey-Room 7. The only definitive context we have for a tablet addressed to Ea-Nasir is the one found near this box, in the doorway between Room 2 and 7. [2]

Tablet 16089a (or UET V 29) reads: "Speak to Ea-Nasir: Thus says Muhaddum with regard to the ingots: the sealed tablet of your companions has just 'departed' to you. Now Saniqum and Ubaiatum have gone to come before you. If you are truly my brother, send somebody with them, and the ingots which are at your disposition may be given to them." [translation: Leemans, 1960] [3]

The lack of definitive context is due to lack of cards and Woolley's need to fire the tablets before their reading/publishing [4]. Either the cards were actually lost, or, potentially, misattributed due to the amount of damage to Straight Street No. III (yellow) [5]. If you look up the descriptions of tablets mentioning Ea-Nasir [6], by name on UrOnline, most of them say, "House IV/Old Street No. I".

So that said, there are several notable features of No. I Old Street (grey) and No. III Straight Street (yellow)'s formal house descriptions [7].

Grey-Room 5, Grey-Room 6, and G-Y-Room 10 are all altar rooms. Typically, each house has one altar room. Two is unusual. Three is extremely strange.

No. I Old Street (grey) is extremely old, and the walls stayed relatively consistent.

The long Grey-Room 3 hallway originally connected to the purple and red rooms houses, but these were sold and bricked off.

No. III Straight Street (yellow) was "much ruined" and consistently remodeled, also younger than the boundary walls of Church St. No. III (orange) and Straight St. No. V (teal) [5, 2].

The half-walls of Yellow-Room 13 acted as three open sheds. Yellow-Room 9 was a kitchen, Yellow-Room 3 was a stairwell and drain, and Yellow-Room 4 was a bedroom. The door between the courtyard (Y-2) and "guest room" (Y-G-6) was larger than usual too, and the wall was built with brick mud and matting between the bricks to give a thick structure, unusual in private buildings.

Yellow-Grey-Room 10 was another altar with an incense room and chimney behind it (Y-G-11).

The position of the rooms with drains, G-2, G-4, Y-G-5, and Y-3 are all near altars or kitchens, including G-2 which is near the kitchen of G/Red-7.

Overall, even though Ea-Nasir's tablets might have been found here (which we can't be sure of, because the cards have been lost or misattributed), I think the shape, age, and abnormality of "Ea-Nasir's House" is important. None of the rooms in grey were described as or seem to be a bedroom, excepting the rooms that were sold and bricked off (red and purple).

Straight St. No. III that does seem to function as a house (kitchen, drain, second story, bedroom), clearly has access to the altars but with separation between them.

Because of the lack of tablet context and general abnormality, I don't think this means Straight St. No III was Ea-Nasir's house or he was an altar-keeper. Y-G-6, G-3, Y-8, or the upper floors could be used for tablet storage, but Woolley doesn't mention caches of tablets (or fallen tablets) in either location, while he does for No. VII Church Street (red) [8]. If the cards are misattributed and "House IV" means "House III" or another location, then we also have to reconcile the artifacts at that location which might have nothing to do with Ea-Nasir, or are also missing their artifact cards. And other than finding the cards, we might never know.

So at the very least, from the previous write-up, where Ea-Nasir is a man working closely to the temple, prioritizing the state's copper over private business orders, I think the little context we do have reflects that. That one tablet is not in an unusual location- It was delivered to the step of a religious area where the message would either be kept or eventually given to its intended recipient.

References below the cut:

1. Woolley, C. Leonard. “Excavations at Ur: The Antiquaries Journal.” The Antiquaries Journal XI, no. 4 (October 1931): p 32.

2. Woolley, Leonard, and Max Mallowan. Ur Excavations VII: The Old Babylonian Period. Ur Excavations 7. London: British Museum Pub. Ltd, 1976. https://archive.org/details/ur-excavations-vii.-the-old-babylonian-period. p 141-179.

3. Leemans, W.F. Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1960. https://archive.org/details/foreigntradeinol0000leem/page/35/mode/1up. p 46.

4. Woolley and Mallowan. Ur Excavations VII: The Old Babylonian... p 17.

5. Woolley. “Excavations at Ur: The Antiquaries...” p 30.

6. Legrain, Leon. Ur Excavations Texts III: Business Documents of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Vol. 3. Publications of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia, 1947.

7. Woolley and Mallowan. Ur Excavations VII: The Old Babylonian... p 141-179.

8. Woolley. “Excavations at Ur: The Antiquaries...” p 31.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Came across this while looking for info on Ea-Nasir for something school related (don’t question it). Overall this research is really excellent work, though I wonder if anyone has ever re-examined Woolley’s room identifications. (One of my professors used to bring up that someone needed to do that for Minoan room identifications, as Arthur Evans was known to just kind of say things based on vibes. I’m paraphrasing slightly.) But I’m willing to accept those for the sake of this discussion.

What I do question is this part of the conclusion: “That one tablet is not in an unusual location- It was delivered to the step of a religious area where the message would either be kept or eventually given to its intended recipient.” I don’t think we should call the tablets location the place that it was “delivered to.” This is Ur, not Pompeii—the building wasn’t evacuated in a hurry with everything left as it was. The tablet’s location then is either where it was stored long-term, or where it was discarded.

Given that the tablet and box were found in an area that would have heavy foot traffic, I don’t think “storage” is the logical conclusion. If I had to guess (and this is strictly based on what you have here, I haven’t looked into the reports for details), I’d say what makes most sense is that the tablet was left behind in this spot when the building was abandoned.

I don’t think this undermines the rest of your answer. The grey house appears to be a public or religious building that Ea-Nasir could have worked at or with; it could be he lived in the yellow house, or perhaps the owner of the property lived there and Ea-Nasir merely worked there. I would be curious to see what other non-copper-complaint documents were found there, and what sort of business/religious model they suggest.

However, I do think the fact that the grey building was effectively a place of business is important. As such, its administrators (Ea-Nasir himself, his accountant, etc) likely kept records of business transactions. A letter such as this could be taken as proof of payment received, or of the names of business contacts, or something similar. (Obviously speculation, but my point is that this doesn’t seem an unusual thing to keep in the files.) The letters of complaint could have been stored for similar reasons, or out of a need for a “complete record,” or even in case of a lawsuit. That would have been a thing in ancient Ur, and I have a feeling Ea-Nasir was familiar with the process.

However, as I said, clearly these letters weren’t stored on the floor of the courtyard by the door to the kitchen. And as funny as the image of Ea-Nasir decorating the wall of his place of business with negative reviews is, I think the more likely explanation is that whenever the building was abandoned (because Ea-Nasir died, or the business went under, or the roof started leaking—whatever the reason), the old records were sorted through, some to keep and some to discard. I’m a bit of a hoarder so I know what it looks like when I move out of a place—clay tablets everywhere. (Hey mom do I still need these pay stubs from… 2005?) Sadly that means the letters of complaint were definitely in the “discard” pile, or at least in the “keep but if we forget them it’s not worth going back” pile. That’s what the location of the tablet suggests to me—dropped or put down in the moving process and never retrieved.

Again, this is all speculation, I’ve just been eyeballs deep in Bronze Age Mesopotamia trivia for a week now (school stuff), and I needed to share at least a little.

(Also, if you want my really out there explanation for the tablets, it’s that this is neither Ea-Nasir’s house nor his place of business. It’s the Temple of the God of Shitty Merchants and Ea-Nasir dedicated the tablets of his worst reviews as offerings. Can I back this up in any way? No. Do I think it’s hilarious? Absolutely. Will this explanation find its way into a Mesopotamian era fanfic I write? Depends if I survive the next few semesters and can ever get back to writing…)

[iamthepulta]

Robins. Mercury, Mining, and Empire, 2011

[cufes2]

My absolute favorite part of being a historical metallurgist is going back to texts like Dr. Easby here and saying, "Yeah man, this is normal. We still gotta do this part of wax casting. 'cause physics."