The oldest known technical encyclopedia, Gao Gong Ji, was written around 300 BC and is part of a larger text called Zhou Rites. An ancient text contains six chemical formulas for mixing bronze, listing items such as swords, bells, axes, knives, and mirrors and how to make them.
Over the past 100 years, researchers have struggled to translate two major ingredients, listed as ‘jin’ and ‘xi’. Experts believed that these words translated to copper and tin, key elements in the bronze-making process. Did not match the composition of the artifact.
The discovery allows a better understanding of ancient bronze production and opens up new questions about when this process began.
In modern Chinese, jin means gold. However, the ancient meaning of the word could be copper, a copper alloy, or just a metal, which made it difficult to pinpoint specific ingredients.
“These recipes were used by Eurasia’s largest bronze industry during this period,” Liu said in a statement. “Attempts to reconstruct these processes, which he has been doing for over 100 years, have failed.”
chemical analysis
Liu and lead researcher Mark Pollard analyzed the chemical composition of Chinese coins minted around the time Kao Gong Ji was written. Pollard is the Edward Hall Professor of Archeology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Institute for Archeology and Art History.
Previously, researchers thought the coins were made by diluting copper with tin and lead.
Analysis revealed that the coin’s chemical composition was the result of two pre-prepared metal alloys, one of copper, tin, and lead, and the other of copper and lead.
The two researchers concluded that jin and xi are likely mixed metal alloys.
“For the first time in more than 100 years of research, we have a workable understanding of how to interpret the recipes for making early Chinese bronze objects given in Gao Gong Ji,” Pollard said in a statement. I have created a detailed explanation,” he said.
The findings indicate that ancient Chinese bronze production relied on combinations of alloys rather than pure metals, and that metalworking is more complex than previously thought.
“This marks an additional step in the manufacturing process of early Chinese copper alloy products: the production of pre-prepared alloys,” said Liu. “This represents an additional, but hitherto unknown, layer in the metals production and supply network in China.”
Archaeologically, without chemical analysis, this additional step would have remained invisible, researchers said.
“Understanding alloying practices is critical to understanding the elaborate bronze ceremonial vessels and underlying mass production in Shang and Zhou societies,” said Liu.
Using this kind of analysis could help researchers decipher other texts on ancient metallurgy from different cultures and regions in the future, the researchers say.
Source: www.cnn.com
