First published in 1988, the present volume contains the texts of papers read at a three-day Colloquium on bronzeworking centres in Western Asia from 1000 BC until the beginning of the Achaemenian period in 539 BC, which was held in the British Museum in July 1986. Each paper has been revised in the light of the discussion which followed it. The Colloquium was organized by Dr J E Curtis on behalf of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities and forms the first in a series which it is hoped will be held annually.

John Curtis

Introduction, 1 Bronzeworking centres of Western Asia c. 1000-539 BC: problems and perspectives 2 The background to the Luristan Bronzes 3 Northwest Iran as a bronzeworking centre: the view from Hasanlu4 The Iron Age in Guilan: proposal for a chronology 5 Bronzeworking centres in Central Asia c. 1000-539 BC 6 Assyria as a bronzeworking centre in the Late Assyrian period 7 Neo-Assyrian textual evidence for bronzeworking centres 8 Further notes on Assyrian bronzeworking 9 Bronze objects from Babylonia 10 Textual evidence for bronze in Babylonia in the Early Iron Age, 1000-539 BC 11 Urartu as a bronzeworking centre 12 The background to the Phrygian bronze industry 13 North Syria as a bronzeworking centre in the early first millennium BC: luxury commodities at home and abroad 14 Phoenicia as a bronzeworking centre in the Iron Age 15 The role of the Sea Peoples in the bronze industry of Palestine Transjordan in the Late Bronze - Early Iron transition 16 The evidence of bronzeworking in the West Semitic texts -17 Oman: a bronze-producing centre during the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC 18 Egypt as a bronzeworking centre (1000-539 BC) 19 The evidence of scientific analysis: a case study of the Nimrud Bowls 20 Problems and possibilities for provenancing bronzes by chemical composition, with special reference to Western Asia and the Mediterranean in the Early Iron Age 21 Concluding remarks