Hi,

I am a graduate student at the Unviersity of Texas at Austin in
archaeology. I have a technical question about how and if alum (or
other astringent substances containing alum or ferrous sulphate) can be
used in bronze-smithing.

The reason I ask is because bronze-smiths appear to be consistently
associated with alum procurement in a group of texts from a site
(Pylos) the Late Bronze Age in the southwest of Greece. I'm writing my
dissertation on the individuals from this site and their relationship
to the administration of the state.

Many thanks,
Dimitri Nakassis

---
University of Texas at Austin, Classics Department
Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory
http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/people/peoplea.html