Contact tinning: A millennia‐old plating technology

Tinning copper and copper alloy objects by putting them into (electrical) contact with metallic tin in a boiling aqueous solution of potassium hydrogen tartar is a very old technique, but is nowadays almost forgotten. It was possibly invented by the Gauls and used intensively until the 20th century. This paper first briefly recounts the history of this galvanic process. To understand better the parameters influencing the thickness of the coat and thus to reconstruct this ancient technique, laboratory tests were undertaken by varying a series of parameters. The results are then presented with a short interpretation.     

The technology of Copper Age funerary pottery from Central Italy: An integrated study of compositional analyses and manufacturing traces

The paper focuses on ceramic vessels unearthed from Copper Age necropolises located in the area of the modern city of Rome and commonly attributed to the Rinaldone culture. The peculiar vessels' shapes, mainly associated with the consumption of beverages, their accuracy of manufacture and the very low impact of these ceramic morphologies in the coeval household assemblages lead to the study of such an apparently selected production through a multidisciplinary research. Petrographic analysis, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) integrated with the analysis of manufacturing traces and X-ray investigation suggest the transmission of technological choices, which remained unchanged over almost two millennia.     

先秦马车构造技术探讨——关于重心平衡的问题

先秦马车在构造技术上力求解决车辆重心的平衡与协调,尤其是为促进牵引力与重心力之间的平衡及保持重心的稳定而发展起来的构造与组装技术,进一步提高了车辆的各项性能,技术的进步使得马车各部分构件及整体形制渐趋合理。     

Arsenic accumulation on the bones in the Early Bronze Age İkiztepe Population,Turkey

In this study, arsenic, copper and lead content of a group of human and animal bones recovered from the Early Bronze Age ?kiztepe site have been analyzed using ICP-MS method. Average arsenic value of 90 femur bones of a human was found to be 15.0 ± 5.79 ppm which was varied among age and sex groups, and among species. Origin of arsenic accumulation in bones was diagenetic because overall the groups were highly variable. The distribution of metallic items among the burials had a big affect on the arsenic uptake of the bones. Copper and lead values supported the diagenetic arsenic accumulation in the bones as well. Their values on the bones were not as high as those for the individuals involved in metal working activities in the ancient world. Judging from these data, it is concluded that ?kiztepe people did not produce the manufactured metallic items using arsenical copper but might have been imported from the other sites.     

现代国际体系史的一大理解范式和根本主题

在其愈益广阔、愈益复杂的演进中,15和16世纪之交开始的现代国际体系史愈益形成其能动的常在机理和“运动模式”。对它们的首次揭示出自利奥波德·冯·兰克1833年的经典论文———基于欧洲大陆国际政治之动态机理的《论列强》。兰克之后,这方面最卓越的成果当推百余年后问世的《不牢靠的平衡》,其作者路德维希·德约揉合三项地缘政治关系理念,即海权对陆权、欧洲均势对海外优势、传统中等列强对侧翼超级大国(后两项有赖于他的创造或决定性发展),异常雄辩和发人深思地论说了4个世纪的现代欧洲国际权势斗争。德约揭示的现代国际体系史一大范式和主题可用两对概念概括:欧陆均势与海外优势,欧陆均势与侧翼大国。它们与兰克的揭示大有差别,首先因为德约的全球眼界不同于兰克的欧陆眼界。德约的至关重要的深层理解之一,在于“洲级大国”之新兴绝对优势,那是现代国际体系演进史的一大必然性,而中国以及当代美国以外的其他一两个“洲级大国”成为未来世界强国的终极依据就在于此。     

一件中国国家博物馆馆藏铜雕塑锈蚀产物的分析研究

铜雕塑作为现代艺术品因其历史价值、文化价值、审美价值、科技价值和时代价值被越来越多的博物馆收藏。经过岁月的洗礼,雕塑上有时也会出现锈蚀产物,锈蚀产物或影响艺术品的美感或进一步损害雕塑,因此需要对锈蚀产物进行鉴别,然后采取适合的方法将其去除。为此,通过超景深三维视频显微观察、扫描电子显微镜-能谱仪、显微激光拉曼光谱和傅立叶变换显微红外光谱对一件中国国家博物馆馆藏铜雕塑锈蚀产物进行取样分析。能谱结果表明该锈蚀产物中没有氯离子,再结合拉曼光谱和显微红外光谱结果可以确定锈蚀产物是蓝铜钠石[Na₂Cu(CO₃)₂·3H₂O]和含有钠离子和氧离子的水合甲酸铜[Cu₄Na₄O(HCOO)₈(OH)₂·4H₂O],这种铜锈蚀产物在国内报道较少。为防止它们进一步腐蚀和损害雕塑,选择使用物理方法将锈蚀产物清除。科学的检测方法和分析手段为铜雕塑保护方案的制定提供了重要信息支撑和理论依据。     

Sold Futures? The Global Availability of Metals and Economic Growth at the Peripheries: Distribution and Regulation in a Degrowth Perspective

In recent years, the strategic role certain metals play is seen as central to the geopolitics promulgated by state agents in the North. While a switch to renewable energy and an increase in energy efficiency might be instrumental to reducing dependence on fossil energy, it increases dependence on metals. This paper starts from an analysis of the likely availability of metals in the near future and then proceeds to investigate political concerns raised by considering the geological fundamentals of social development at the peripheries of the capitalist world‐system. The inequality of metal stocks, future metal requirements and the ensuing political challenges are investigated, taking copper as an example. The final section is dedicated to the discussion of regulatory challenges in view of multiple constraints on metal extraction. This section also highlights the preconditions of a socially legitimate transition to a renewable energy system in the coming period of socio‐ecological transformation.     

Copper worlds: a historical archaeology of Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their industrial enterprise in the Torne River Valley,c. 1650–1680

This article analyses the industrial enterprise of the Dutch-born brothers Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their investments in Sápmi and the upper parts of the Torne River Valley, northern Sweden, during the second half of the seventeenth century. The aim is to explore the driving forces behind the industrial projects of the two brothers in a larger global and colonial context. With inspiration from recent critical studies on the simplifications, and Eurocentrism, in earlier understandings of the birth of modernity, we focus on the modernizing processes taking place in the upper part of the Torne River Valley as a meeting zone between local populations and landscapes and external capital. Metal extraction was booming in the seventeenth-century Sámi areas. Both the Danish-Norwegian and the Swedish Crowns invested heavily in the mining of silver, copper and iron. The scientific focus in archaeology and history has hitherto been very much on the state-governed projects, and limited interest has been directed towards the private enterprises. Moreover, there is also a need to study the roles of the local Finnish and Sámi populations, as well as the global connections, in these colonial industrial projects.     

Balance of Power vs. Perpetual Peace: Paradigms of European Order from Utrecht to Vienna, 1713–1815

Over the course of the eighteenth century, two major models of European international order emerged as alternatives to universal monarchy: one was based on the balance of power; the other centred on the idea of perpetual peace. This article traces each back to its origins in debates around the moment of the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. In particular, it examines the evolution of the doctrine of balance of power in early eighteenth-century English political thought and then as a legal principle incorporated into the Treaty of Utrecht, before proceeding to the counter-proposal in the form of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Plan of Perpetual Peace and the objections it raised. It then shows how Saint-Pierre's paradigm of a league of European states found (albeit in altered form) its way into the Treaty of the Holy Alliance (1815) proposed by Tsar Alexander I after the defeat of Napoleon. It concludes by highlighting the fundamental soundness of the idea of European league, as well as the flaws inherent in the early model of Saint-Pierre.