gems, ancient gemology, ancient jewelry, Egypt, Egyptian jewelry, Babylonia, Iraq

The Babylonian use of base metals was part of a pattern of great antiquity. Leaving aside a malachite pendant from a ninth millennium BC context at Shanidar cave in north-eastern Iraq, which may or may not have been worked, the earliest copper objects in Mesopotamia are a cold-hammered awl from Tell Maghzaliyeh, of seventh millennium BC date, and two roughly contemporary beads from Tell Sotto, sites located in northern Iraq.