Gary Coffman wrote:
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 13:18:58 -0500, Tom McDonald wrote:
Gary Coffman wrote:
The evidence brought out in this thread is that *one* copper artifact
shows radiographic evidence (characteristic porosity) for part of it
being heated above the melting point in atmosphere at some point.
That is in no way conclusive evidence of casting technology. The
piece may have been an attempt at casting, or it may simply have
been overheated while being worked.
Gary
Gary,
Are you referring to the sort of amorphous, three-cornered blob
listed in Conner's web site as 'R666', and in the Milwaukee
Public Museum (where it's curated) as '55786':
http://www.iwaynet.net/~wdc/copper.htm
If so, I have found additional information about that piece.
Tom McDonald
Yes, that's the one. What have you learned?
Gary
Gary,
I corresponded with Dr. Alex Barker of the Milwaukee Public
Museum about this artifact, since they are curating it there.
His response about the description of the artifact was as follows:
"As to why one might wonder if it had been cast, it's relatively
dense for its size, and one surface is fairly smooth and
rounded--not like the upper surface of cast metal, however, but
one might perhaps imagine it as the bottom of an irregular
puddle of metal."
It sounded to me as though he had just looked at it; he was
more than generous with me, running around and looking for the
artifact and associated documentation for me. Unfortunately, he
says he couldn't find a record of any radiograph, but that that
didn't mean it wasn't there. They are changing their records
over to computer files, and the integration of those files won't
start for several months yet. I for one don't doubt the
radiographs shown on Connor's web site, though.
The description he gave seems to fit the photo on Connor's
site. It doesn't look like any purpose-made artifact; but it
does look as one might expect a bit of accidentally melted
copper to look, if it just fell into the ashes of the fire and
cooled there. To my untutored eye, at least.
Tom McDonald