http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/1994/10/03#ancient-metal Especially swords, bells, ritual objects (esp. Shang dynasty bronzes). And <a href="shamanism.html">shamanism</a>. And <a href="alchemy.html">alchemy</a>. (Cf. <a href="eliade.html">Eliade</a> on both those two.) <ul>Recommended: <li>Mircea Eliade, <cite>The Forge and the Crucible</cite> <li><a href="needham.html">Joseph Needham</a>, <cite>Science and Civilisation in China</cite>, vol. 5 has, in the course of its discussion of alchemy, a lot to say about less esoteric sorts of working in metals. <li>Cyril Stanley Smith, <cite>A Search for Structure: Selected Essays on Science, Art, and History</cite> and <cite>From Art to Science : Seventy-two Objects Illustrating the Nature of Discovery</cite> <li>Wen Fong (ed.), <cite>The Great Bronze Age of China</cite> </ul> <ul>To read: <li>Sandra Blakely, <cite>Myth, Ritual and Metallurgy in Ancient Greece and Recent Africa</cite> [<a href="http://cambridge.org/0521855004">Blurb</a>] <li>Dorothy Hosler. <cite>The Sounds and Colors of Power:The Sacred Metallurgical Technology of Ancient West Mexico</cite> <li>Cyril Stanley Smith, <cite>A History of Metallography; the Development of Ideas on the Structure of Metals before 1890</cite> </ul>