Capability to Work and Trade Copper

The unequal distribution of copper, and the knowledge necessary to work it, were probably the strongest incentives for people to trade copper.

Copper was not available to everyone immediately because copper ores don't exist  in every part of the world. The main sources of copper for the Middle East were Oman and Cyprus. Oman is mentioned in several Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets as a rich source of copper.  Starting around 3000 BC it played a crucial role in ancient international trade, receiving ships from Iran, Mesopotamia, and India. Cyprus is an island off the south coast of Turkey.  It was apparently so well known for copper in the ancient world that takes its name from the ancient Greek word for copper: koo-pros.  Cyrpus exported copper to the Middle East as well as throughout the Mediterranean.
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In addition, unlike previous technologies available to humans, copper production requires a great deal of knowledge and manpower.  Even if you can identify the ore, you need to know how to smelt it (a process that removes the impurities from the ore) and turn it into useful object.
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Copper Ore in the Fayan district of Jordan (@BibArch, 2014)

When we think about copper trade in the ancient world, we need to also think about the trade or exchange of knowledge. This knowledge could have spread through the merchants moving the finished products, or even through mobile craftspeople who went from site to site, working the raw materials that that community had required.
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Copper Technology

​When human beings first started using copper to make tools, around 8000 BCE, it marked a complete paradigm shift in the way societies functioned. Copper tools had huge advantages over their predecessors, which would have been made of stone, bone, or wood. This new material spurred technological advances in almost every aspect of life at the time, from agriculture and animal husbandry, to crafts and industry, to weapons and warfare.

Copper sickle from the site of Gawra in modern Iraq

Ceramic sickle from the site of Ur in modern Iraq

How much better were copper tools?  Above are two sickles, tools for harvesting grain, from the Near Eastern Section at the Penn Museum.  The one on the left is made of copper, while the one on the right is ceramic, and would have had sharp stones fitted into it like teeth.  Archaeologists who have studied the use of these kinds of tools estimate that the average person could work two to five times faster with a copper sickle than with the ceramic sickles that came before it (Halstead, 2014). That's a remarkable increase in efficiency.  Harvest time was probably the busiest and most stressful time of the year for postindustrial societies, so it's no wonder societies wanted to acquire this technology as fast as possible.

Bronze Sword from Northwestern Iran

​Another advantage of copper is that it can be cast.  Casting is the process of pouring molten metal into a mould so that, when it cools, it takes on the shape of that mould.  This means that copper can be made into almost any shape, which allowed the production of new, deadly weapons like the sword shown above.
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The Beauty of Copper

The fact that copper can be cast also means that it can make beautiful jewelry and ornaments.  In fact, copper was used by humans for decoration long before it was ever used for tools.  

Copper ores have beautiful, vibrant colors, and prehistoric peoples occasionally made beads and pendants out of them. A shift toward the use of green colors that began in the neolithic period lead to the desire of ancient peoples for copper and its coloring. Once we learned to smelt copper and cast it, copper jewelry and ornaments were worn and used by the elite members of many ancient societies.

The availability of copper deposits and the ability to smelt that copper gave societies a certain amount of prestige and wealth.  A perfect example of the effect copper can have is the wealth of Cyprus due to the large amounts of copper present on the island. The process of smelting copper could also be quite expensive. Until a cheap system of smelting with chalcopyrite was invented in 1700 BC, the ability to smelt and own copper gave a certain air of prestige. With prestige comes a desire to own, causing copper to be sought out and traded.

Pre-pottery beads and pendants, some of the earliest uses of copper ore. Found in neolithic Israel. (10.1.2 Copper)

4 cm piece of malachite and azurite, two common copper ores with attractive green and blue colors. (Wikipedia, 2014)

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Sources

​​http://www.pnas.org/content/105/25/8548.full.pdf

Cleuziou and Tosi 2007 Copper Production as seen from Al-Moyassar 1 Weisgerber.pdf 

Paul Halstead, Two Oxen Ahead: Pre-Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean. Malden, MA; Oxford; Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2014.

"Malachite." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Nov. 2016. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

​"10.1.2 Copper." 10.1.2 Copper. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

@BibArch. "Saving Dead Sea Could Harm Archaeological Sites - Biblical Archaeology Society." Biblical Archaeology Society. Biblical Archaeology Society, 13 Nov. 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Header Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/webbaliah