#COPPER MINES

[peacefuldwellings]

[oblivious-idiot]

spring mist in st agnes (+ a rock i took home!) <3

[the-shades-of-night-descend]

Chile possesses huge mineral wealth and is an export giant. The country produces the most copper in the world, and is home to one of the globe’s largest open-pit mines, the Chuquicamata mine. Located in the Atacama Desert, this mine is one kilometer deep, four kilometers long and three kilometers wide. The town of Chuquicamata had to be abandoned in 2004: as the mine grew, so did levels of waste gas and dust in the air. The extraction of raw materials has many downsides.

Chile also mines lithium and manganese and holds some of the most productive salmon farms and marine resources in the world.

At the head of this economy are major industrial groups. Most are owned by old Chilean families. Some made their fortunes in the 70s, thanks to close ties with General Pinochet’s regime. The film presents the Pérez Cruz family business, which has a monopoly on gas distribution. They are typical of a small Chilean elite that is intent on defending traditional values. But the impact of climate change and pollution represents a threat. The mining and textile industries are putting pressure on the ecosystem in a nation that grapples with extreme weather. In some regions, it no longer rains.

[squarerankinsigniasacramento]

COPPER MINES

[squaremilitaryranksalesmencorp]

THE COPPER MINES OF CORUSCANT

[mckitterick]

translation of cuneiform tablet:

Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:

When you came, you said to me as follows: "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: "If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!"

What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf

of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given

of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of

How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in

it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.

Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.

The Bingham Canyon Mine is an open-pit mine in Salt Lake City, Utah. At 2.5 miles (4 km) wide and 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, it is the largest man made excavation in the world. It is also considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history – more than 17,000,000 tons.

40.523000°, -112.151000°

Source imagery: Maxar

[theepoetspoem]

Siempre revolucionaria, nunca muerta, nunca inútil.

[laurenkmyers]

dead friend forever the series + phee/phi & jin 👀👀👀

[cosmicdreamgrl]

𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘫𝘬 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴: (71/?)

[necroticboop]

💎 shiny rocks make brain go brrrr ✦ shattuckite [x]

[nortism]

the funniest part of ghosts s5 ep6 is how hard robin and the captain are pushing for julian to apologise to alison like they weren’t both very much on board with killing her

[lollydollie]

I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.

[manessha545]

Chuquicamata, Chile: Chuquicamata is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at 2,850 m above sea level. It is 215 km northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km north of the capital, Santiago. Wikipedia

[kenniecrazyface]

UHM…. SUPER COOL ALERT😎‼️ Made this when the thumbnail dropped. Feels like a month ago already 😿

[juliawvicker]

I won't be coming back to Thailand.

[iamthepulta]

How competitive was the copper market? Would Ea-Nasir have been one of many sellers of broadly equivalent status all trying to make a buck, like how one town might have six building firms all competing for work, or would he have had a near-monopoly like Starbucks? Would he have been a sole trader who brokered deals between mines and consumers, or would he have managed a warehouse with employees and held stock, etc?

Oh SHIT, I never answered this and it got lost in my drafts! I'm so sorry.

This is a fantastic question! Just to flesh out the picture of the trade in the day: Bronze is an alloy of copper (Cu) with either arsenic (As) or tin (Sn). Arsenic is a common unwanted element in copper deposits, and copper-arsenic-oxide (Cu-As-O) minerals look very similar to plain copper minerals. However, tin (Sn) occurs in very different, rarer, geologic environments, and thus must be sourced from different areas.

Likewise, As-Bronze is less malleable than copper, but not by much; arsenic ions are about the same size. Tin ions form good bronze because they're larger than the copper ions and prevent the metal from freely deforming, so it was prioritized for weapons and tools. Arsenic was used when tin wasn't available.

Ur was known for being one of the best cities for bronzework during the Bronze Age: metalworking services were in high demand, and they were the center of the copper, arsenic, and tin trades. Copper from Oman (or Cyprus, as their industry was developing more at the time), tin from Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, or Turkey, (depending on which archaeologist you talk to), and arsenic from India or Egypt.

So yeah, as a middleman, Ea-Nasir probably had numerous competitors who procured copper from Oman, particularly from the halfway point in Qatar, and then sent it back to Ur. Also referencing the plural translation "-those of the people who travel to Dilmun-", although likely only a few of those merchants were chosen to sell to the temple/government. (But that's speculation. Maybe the temple picked one person a year? Maybe copper tithes meant there was usually supply, and it was only this year during war the temple picked Ea-Nasir to buy from.)

It's also quite possible there were people doing copper business like Ea-Nasir further up the Tigris and Euphrates closer to Cyprus, and there were definitely specialist merchants for arsenic-copper and tin procurement. Once the copper was in the city, his buyers were refiners and metallurgists who made the bronze or copper wares that were purchased/exported throughout the Middle East.

As for employees and stock, I honestly don't know. But from the letters, it sounds like he was stretched rather thin, and he was dealing with buyers' messengers himself. So I wouldn't be surprised (although this is speculation) if it was just him and perhaps a servant/slave of the period to handle things in Ur while he was in Dilmun.

[Image References under the cut]

meme from r/historymemes

Peterson, 2012. Forging Social Networks: Metallurgy and the Politics of Value in Bronze Age Eurasia. The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139061186.018

Content References within my other Ea-Nasir writeups under iamthepulta: #mining history, or #ea nasir