Jovanovič has recently drawn attention to the early copper mine at Rudna Glava in the copper mining area of Maidanpek-Bor in Eastern Serbia (Jovanovič 1979, 103). This copper deposit has iron associated with it. In some respects this occurrence of iron and copper together compares with the deposit at Phalabora in South Africa where copper and other minerals are mined today. Rudna Glava has been a copper mine in the Chalcolithic period and an iron mine in the Turkish period. Today it is worked out, but the working of the iron ore has left exposed some of the shafts and galleries used by Chalcolithic and Bronze Age copper miners. It has been possible to obtain a sample of the copper ores used in the early periods and integrate them into a smelting programme (Tylecote et al. 1977, 305), the main purpose of which has been to determine the partitioning of the three elements between the ore, the slag and the metal. The object of this exercise was to try and relate the artefacts, the slag, and metal to the ore source. So far, ores from the British Isles, Spain, and Africa have been examined and reported (Tylecote 1977). The sample from Yugoslavia came rather too late for the first report but the work is continuing.

The smelting work described in this report was carried out by Ali Ghaznavi and the analyses were kindly made by R. Hetherington formerly of Newcastle University and Dr P. T. Craddock of the British Museum Research Laboratory. I have to thank Dr B. Jovanovič of the Archaeological Institute, Belgrade, for supplying the material and inspiring the work.