More Than Gold – Metals in Ancient Egypt

Tutankhamun's gold mask is an emblem of ancient Egypt and a testament to its craftspeople's skill. Yet Egypt had more than gold, and the mask is only the best-known of many artefacts. The lecture explores which metals Egyptians used and what they made: tools and weapons, jewellery and luxurious vessels. We will also learn that Egyptians could work meteoritic iron in the fourth millennium BCE, although they preferred arsenical copper and later bronze in practice. The lecturer has studied these questions for many years and published a monograph in Oxford on the pyramid builders' tools.

Mgr. Martin Odler is a doctoral researcher at the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, studying material culture, especially copper artefacts. He regularly joins excavations of tombs at and around the Abusir pyramid field and serves on the board of the Slovak Aigyptos Foundation.