Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
of smelting methods. Table 36 lists ores from which copper was and still is
extracted.
Smelting such copper ores as the minerals
malachite
(composed of copper
carbonate) or
chalcopyrite
(composed of copper sulfide) was a well-
established metallurgical technology in many regions of the world before the
end of the third millennium B.C.E. The smelting furnaces and smelting tech-
niques used in each region seem to have been quite different, and charac-
teristic for that region (Herbert 1984). In the Wadi Arabah, in southern Israel,
and in the Sinai Peninsula, for example, ancient Egyptians smelted mainly
TABLE 36
Common Copper Ores
Ore
Composition
Atacamite
Copper chloride
Azurite
Basic copper carbonate
Malachite
Basic copper carbonate
Cuprite
Cuprous oxide
Tenorite
Copper oxide
Chalcocite
Copper sulfide
Chalcopyrite
Copper iron sulfide
Chrysocolla
Copper silicate
Vitriol
Copper sulfate
FIGURE 35
Copper vessel.
Basket-shaped copper vessel from the Cave of the Trea-
sure, Nahal Mishmar, Israel. Copper, one of the earliest used metals, has been one of
the most important materials in the development of materials technology. Masses of
native copper were being pounded into tools and ornaments as early as the tenth mil-
lennium
B
.
C
.
E
. Because of the relative ease with which it is recovered from its ores, its
remarkable physical properties (high ductility, malleability, and thermal conductivity)
and its resistance to corrosion, copper has been among the major metals in terms of
the quantities consumed.
