I am planning on making a movie set in Europe during the Copper Age and I would like to know how copper was smelted in all the regions (China, India, Turkey, Mesopotamia, Europe, etc.) of the Copper Age. I want to know the techniques, steps, and what tools they used. It would be great if you could tell where the copper came from and how it was mined. It would be nice if you provided the sources to your information.
To my knowledge there was never a Copper Age. You go Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age. Bronze is an amalgam of copper with a small amount of tin. The period runs from about 2,000 B.C. to about 700 B.C. The basic production is to make a mould of the item you want from clay. First you make the desired item from wax. Then you enclose the wax in clay, leaving a hole in the top. Heating the copper/tin mix in a crucible until it melts then pour what is now bronze into the hole in the mould. The bronze melts the wax and replaces it, (the lost wax technique). At the early stages of mining, men used deer antler picks to dig narrow tunnels in ore bearing rock. Copper stains the surrounding rocks green, so a seam of copper is relatively easy to spot. Copper and tin do not usually occur together, so bronze seems to suggest a trade system. Britain, and especially Cornwall were known in antiquity by the Phoenicians as the Tin Isles.
