preliminary archaeometallurgical investigations of bronze age metal finds from shahdad and tepe yahya

shahdad and yahya which are two important prehistoric sites in the kerman province, are of most important forarchaeometallurgical studies. during excavations at these sites a number of metal objects have been discovered.moreover, evidence of metal working on the surface testify to manifacturing of metal objects. this also shows that thesite might have experienced craft specialization.the following contribution is representing results of archaeometallurgical investigations on several metal artifacts fromprehistoric contexts from the sites of tepe yahya and shahdad which are situated in kerman province. the aim of thisresearch is to investigate the provenance of the raw materials which had been used. further some new observationsconcerning the distribution of artifacts will be presented.