I found these two objects a couple of months ago. They've been laying in the back of my Jeep til today. These were dug about 8 inches deep near some woods on a river. They were a couple of feet apart. I believe they are copper. The one resembles an axe head. Any thoughts?
Greetings Illinoisdoug,
You are right on that they are ancient tools - I am interested in the precise metal they are made of and would appreciate if you would keep us posted. If they are straight copper or perhaps bronze, would make a difference; a VERY neat find though in either case.
Oroblanco
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"We must find a way, or we will make one."--Hannibal Barca
There are several ways but require either a really accurate scale or a set of chemicals. They sell a metal testing kit for a few bucks, which is a little bit destructive and uses some strong acids, a less destructive way would be to get the exact weight of the tool (separately of course) then place the tool in a container which is full to the very brim with water - like one of the Pyrex flasks you see used by chemists, and collect the amount of water that is dispelled and follow a rather complicated (after you have done it a few times it is not that complicated) but if you are interested here is one explanation of how to find the specific gravity http://www.afrc.uamont.edu/patterson...ic_gravity.htm
Knowing the specific gravity can tell you what the metal is, because straight copper has a specific gravity of 8.95 while bronze (depending on the exact proportions of copper-to-tin mix in the alloy) should be pretty close to 7.9. That means in ordinary language that copper is almost nine times as dense as water while bronze is closer to eight. Gold is around 19 times the density of water, for comparison while some varieties of wood are less than 1. If you don't have the extra cash to buy a metal testing kit and fool with the slightly dangerous chemicals, and don't have a highly accurate scale to weigh and measure that way - take them to a good jeweler and ask them to tell you what it is; most are happy to test it for you for free or a small charge,using the same little metal test kit you could buy. If you are going to get serious with your metal detecting, it is well worth the investment to buy your own metal testing kit as you are sure to find jewelry etc that it is not easy to tell whether it is silver, platinum, white gold, or costume. Here is one site with some test kits (naturally none of these kits has the acids for identifying copper, but you get the idea) http://www.findingking.com/storefron...022&c=10048809
I hope this is of some help.
Oroblanco
SUPPORT THE BEEF INDUSTRY - EAT BEEF
"We must find a way, or we will make one."--Hannibal Barca
Doug ....WOW...If Id only known where your jeep was parked!...LOL.
Those are some Awesome "Copper Culture"artifacts...very nice condition.
I dont know much about them but most of similar design Ive seen were between 1200 and 3000 years old.
VERY NOTABLE FINDS....INDEED....Congrats...Joe
I'm not certain that a chemical test ket would clearly identify what you have, mainly because copper can have a variety of compositions on the surface after being exposed to the environment. It's very likely a combination of oxidized copper, copper sulfide and copper carbonate (the greenish patina) and I don't know how those test kits react with different compounds
Oroblanco is correct that you can try to determine the density of the items by using water - the one caveat to that is that you have to be very accurate in your weights and volumes of displaced water, if you're not, you won't be able to distinguish accurately between the different densities and you might make the wrong assessment.
For example: Assume that the axe head looking item weighs 1 pound (453.6 grams). If you place it in a container of water , it would displace ~50.6 milliliters if it was pure copper and ~57.4 milliliters of water if it was bronze. Unless you have very accurate balances and means for measuring volume, that 6.8 milliliter difference is awfully small to detect - add in the fact that you have to make sure you don't lose any of the water that was displaced and a few other places for error and your odds of getting the right number aren't great.
I know you don't know me from Adam, but I happen to work in a laboratory with access to an instrument that can be used to determine the chemical composition of all sorts of items. I have a copper spear head which I had someone check for me to make sure it was copper and it came out as exactly that (it also showed some small amounts of carbon, oxygen, sulfur and other things one would expect to be on something from the ground). If you want to look up the instrument, do a search on Scanning Electron Microscope with Energy Dispersive X-Ray capability (SEM EDX). Because we have one in our lab, I'm lucky enough to be able to talk my fellow microscopist into looking at some of the things I find to determine if they are gold, silver etc...
I certainly can't get into the habit of inundating them with things to look at because they have plenty of other work to do, but they get a kick out of looking at different things too and do it when they have a few free minutes for me. If you would like, I would be willing to have them check those things out for you - as I said, you have no reason to trust me except for the fact that I'm a fellow TH'r. All I can do is make the offer and tell you that you have my word nothing would happen to them to damage them and I would return them as soon as they were analyzed. If you're interested, send me a PM and we can chat on the phone or e-mail or whatever.
I totally understand if you would rather not do this - to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I would trust someone I don't know with my items either. I don't make this offer to everyone because as I said, I don't want to lose my priveledges by taking advantage of my co-workers, but in this case I've always been interested in copper age artifacts and would be happy to help you identify yours.
paul
"There is no getting away from a treasure that once fastens upon your mind" - Joseph Conrad (Nostromo)
Wow! From the patina they sure look like copper. That would mast likely make them quite old. Those are great artifacts, you should have them looked at by a local museum. Whatever you do don't try to cleran them!
The only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the sky.
I don't think there's any need to test them- the color and patina on them look like the hundreds upon hundreds of dug/surface collected copper culture artifacts that I've seen. The axe is unbelievable, nice shape... the other piece is interesting, I can't tell for sure what it is but I can tell you I would be back in that area listening for any faint signal and digging them all! Wow. If you do test them or have them tested let us know what you find. I believe that the copper used by the natives was realatively pure. Although a friend of mine recently found a piece of worked/hammered copper with some silver in it.
"A culture truly grows great when old men plant trees in who's shade they know they will never sit"
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Originally Posted by PBK
