Day 10, June 19th

Day 10, Tuesday June 19th

Daily ankle update (yea, might as well get it out of the way): Staying in the hotel today.  Ankle is still all sorts of messed up and at this point I can’t really stand the thought of not being able to participate any longer.  I hate having to rely on people this heavily, and spent the better part of yesterday fighting off tears (and then not fighting them so much).  I got crutches but they really don’t work well on sand, grass, and rocks.  Who would have thought.  So, today my shoulder is a bit sore from my hour long hobble back from the bathroom yesterday, and I have some very pretty bruises on my sides from the crutches.  I haven’t left my room yet today and had people bring me dinner up last night because I can’t bear the thought of having to get down to the dining hall down this long ass hallway that I am at the end of.  I haven’t eaten anything yet today either, because again, I can’t fathom the idea of getting down to the dining room right now and no one is around to bring anything up to me.

So, I mentioned the XRF (x-ray florescence) machine that Adam showed us and now that I am next to my notes while I am writing, I can add more details about it.  The XRF machine emits a low dose of radiation that is bounced off of an object and depending on the reaction of the electrons (I am not a scientist, so forgive me for not being too technical), you can tell what the item is made of.  The Bronze age ushered in a revolution of sorts.  Copper started being used, most often with tin to create bronze.  Copper was probably used first because it has a greenish hue and would have been the most likely to catch someones eye.  Copper is a softer metal and can be manipulated cold, and can be melted and cast into intricate shapes.   

In the old days, it used to be that the only way that you could tell what something was made of was to break off a piece and analyze it under a microscope.  Copper has a crystalline structure and when it is heated and worked, the crystals form dendridic trees.  Each time the metal is heated and worked, the dendridic structure changes.  The crystals break and reform and by studying the structure, you can tell how the metal was worked and formed.  For example, hammering the copper flattens the crystals together, and by you can tell if it has been hammered and refolded.  However, obviously you don’t want to be breaking off pieces of artifacts that are intact or diagnostic pieces. 

The XRF machine allows for items to be tested without harming them in any way.  Based on the electrons that bounce back to the machine, analysis is done to determine the elements that the item is made of and the percentages. 

Other metals were also used at the time, such as lead.  Lead is very fluid and flexible and has a melting point of around 300 degrees Celsius.  However, lead is very heavy and not practical for all uses.  The Iron age started around 1000 BCE.  There are many advantages of iron, but this does not mean that copper had lost its usefulness.  Iron can be worked hot, but was probably not discovered or manipulated until later because the brownish hue would not have made it stick out.  In addition, iron has a very high melting temperature, about 1500 degrees Celsius.  It would have been much harder to attain temperatures that high at the time, so it was not until technology improved and people began to experiment more that the use of Iron spread.