Salt and Salt Mining

found that the artefacts had a higher ratio of arsenic relative to antimony when compared to Armenian copper ores, a result possibly caused by the metallurgical process or the use of young copper-ore bodies. Patterns of lead isotope suggest that metal smiths from the Ararat Plain and northern Armenia most likely smelted copper ores collected from sources either in north Armenia or in east Anatolia.Amongst the artefacts, a spiral ring from Talin Tomb 11 stood out for its high (11 per cent) tin content, warranting the classification of tin bronze. Although its trace elements are comparable to tin bronzes from Dagestan, the Levant, the Aegean, and the Persian Gulf, its presence in Armenia is difficult to explain.

SALT AND SALT MINING

Recent investigations at the large salt mine of Duzdağı, situated around 7 km north-west of the city of Nakhichevan have ushered in a new chapter in the late prehistory of the Caucasus.192 A conspicuous salt dome overlooking a segment of the Tabriz to Constantinople Silk Road, Duzdağı was mined from the second half of the fifth millennium BC, making it one of the earliest mines of its kind in the world. Its sheer size is noteworthy – it covers an area of 3 x 2 km and has salt deposits 150 m thick. Duzdağı-Nakhichevan is not the only salt mine in the surrounding region – there is Duzdağı-Khoy in the Urmia basin of north-west Iran, for instance – but the Nakhichevan mine is exceptional for its vastness and intensive exploitation over a long period.

A large quantity of Late Chalcolithic (Chaff-Faced Ware) and early KuraAraxes pottery that carpets the southern slope of the site points to its earliest period of exploitation; there is a concentration of these two wares around the entrance of tunnels.Tools such as hammer stones with a groove around their waist, manufactured from river pebbles and weighing no less than a kilo, and sledgehammers as heavy as 10 kg or more attest to the hard labour carried out by the late prehistoric miners. Grinding stones and mortars have also been recovered from the surface; some were used to process salt, whereas others functioned as tool sharpeners. In a recent study, Caroline Hamon has discerned three concentrations of macrolithics, namely an area where tools were manufactured and repaired, zones where salt was extracted, and a third area where the salt was processed.193 Salt mining was a hazardous activity to say the least. The risks involved were graphically revealed when Soviet miners, who had broken through to an ancient mine at this site, found the remains of four workers buried together.Tools scattered around the ancient miners indicated they belonged to a community that flourished at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium BC.

192Marro et al. 2010.

193Hamon 2016.