Chalcolithic Copper Şiria-type bearded axe – adze

Historical Significance

At 1521 g the piece is heavy. Near Eastern shaft-hole axes are characteristically lighter and thinner — the crescentic sheet axehead BM 116050 weighs only 121.5 g — while Carpathian Copper Age hammer-axes and axe-adzes routinely fall in the 600–1500 g range. On mass alone a Balkan attribution would be attractive. Morphology argues otherwise: the diagnostic Jászladány axe-adze is a cruciform tool with straight, wedge-sectioned arms, and does not carry a crescentic, strongly flaring, long-bearded axe blade with a concave underside returning to the shaft hole. That profile, together with the wholly curvilinear modelling, points to the Iranian series, where heavy cast axe-adzes do occur — BM 128613, at 1363 g, being the demonstration.
The absence of a projecting sleeve, collar, rim lip, and ribs removes the features on which Deshayes' Iranian Type A sub-types are discriminated, and is the principal reason the piece resists precise typological placement. The short shaft tunnel (34 mm against 201 mm overall) is proportionate to a cored, cast eye and is not independently diagnostic of region or date.
The reported bulk density of 8.68 g/cm³ does not discriminate copper from bronze. Corrosion products are substantially less dense than metal (cuprite c. 6.1, malachite c. 4.0, tenorite c. 6.3, cassiterite c. 6.9–7.1), and any internal porosity depresses the figure further; the measured value is therefore a lower bound on true alloy density and is consistent with unalloyed copper, arsenical copper, or a tin or leaded bronze alike.
The glossy black patches cannot be identified visually. Decuprification of a tin bronze does produce a hard, lustrous tin-oxide (cassiterite) surface layer, but tenorite (CuO), copper sulfides formed under anaerobic burial (chalcocite, covellite, digenite), and manganese-oxide soil crusts all present similarly. Handheld XRF would not resolve the question: on a patinated surface it reads only the outer c. 10–50 µm and reports corrosion chemistry, not bulk alloy — surface tin enrichment can make a bronze read tin-rich and can misrepresent a decuprified copper.
Nothing in the surface record is inconsistent with an ancient object: the old break carries independent patination, both edges are worn, the patina is stratified, the bore is rough and earth-filled, and there are no machining marks. None of these is individually probative. Both the Near Eastern and the Balkan Copper Age markets are heavily forged, and pastiches assembled from mismatched parts are documented (Harvard Art Museums 304534, a Luristan-style shaft-hole axe whose decorative heads proved to be bronze while blade and shaft were arsenical copper). Internal stylistic coherence is accordingly the most useful morphological test available without analysis, and this piece is internally coherent — its features belong to one tradition rather than being assembled across several.
Function — The mass and the robust, unarticulated shaft-hole zone suggest a heavy working implement (woodworking, or possibly quarrying or mining) or a prestige/deposition object, rather than a light battle-axe.