University of Vienna

Faculty Member, VIAS - Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science, Archaeometallurgy

Other Affiliations: University of Vienna, VIAS

About

Mathias Mehofer: Since the year 2000 I have been head of the Archaeometallurgical Laboratory at the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science/University Vienna. My focus lies on the
-metallurgy of copper, bronze and precious metals, metallurgy of iron
- tool mark analyses, use wear analyses on bronze objects
- Bronze Age, Iron Age and Early Medieval Age, Experimental archaeology
-analyses with the scanning electron microscope (SEM-EDX)

Actually I am carrying out research on the beginning and spread of metallurgy during the Early Bronze Age in the Mediterranean world. Within the framework of an ongoing research project (director: Dr. B. Horejs, ERC-Prehistoric Anatolia) at the tell Çukuriçi Höyük, situated in Western Turkey, a complete metal workshop, dating to the first half of the 3rd mill.BC, was excavated. The archaeometallurgical analyses on the different metallurgical remains form the basis for a detailed study on the expansion of metallurgy in Western Anatolia (see papers and http://independent.academia.edu/BarbaraHorejs/Papers).

Furthermore I am focusing on the spread of the so called “urnfield bronzes” (bronze-swords, weapons, defensive armour, personal implements) from Italy to Greece and the Mediterranean World during the Late Bronze Age. Within this project different questions related to transfer of weapon technology, transfer of metallurgical knowledge and metal trade are examinated (see papers e.g. on the Naue-II-sword found in Ugarit or on the LBA metal trade in Italy).

For this purpose different methods like metallography, SEM-EDX, XRF and lead isotope analyses are used.

Literature:
http://www.univie.ac.at/vias/metall/schriften_d.pdf

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