The dawn and rise of antimony use in the southern Caucasus

Abstract

Antimony (Sb) was utilised over several millennia as the prime material to opacify or decolour glass and glazes, as well as an accompanying element in copper (Cu) alloys. Metallic antimony objects are rare, and mostly confined to Chalcolithic Central Italy and to the first millennia BCE in the southern Caucasus. The innovation of antimony use in metallurgy seems to be confined to the southern Caucasus, and the invention of it might be even more specifically situated in the Great Caucasus. Preexisting knowledge of mining set the pathway for the initial stage of antimonial copper alloys in the first half of the third millennium BCE and for metallic antimony ornaments in the second half of the third millennium BCE. However, the first major expansion of antimony in the metallurgy of the Racha-Lechkumi district in the southern Caucasus (present-day Georgia) started around 1700 BCE, while its spreading in glassmaking occurred in the Late Bronze Age (LBA). Explanations that place antimony adoption within its broader social context are favoured over those that consider material or geological properties in isolation. A recurring theme is the importance of comparative analysis, both geographically and between the different pyrotechnologies, including the precious metals and glass industries, to explore how social, political, climatic and economic conditions affected adoption and innovation patterns. All these factors are considered to explain why the extraction of antimony blossomed in the Late Bronze Age in the southern Caucasus and to reconstruct a framework of exploitation, distribution/trade and use of antimony in the Caucasus and its neighbouring regions in the south and east.