Natural Science in Archaeology

10.7 Other Geologic Raw Materials 241
used as a mortar. The use of asphalt to waterproof pillars in Mesopotamia was noted
by Strabo (16.100, 739). Irrigation machinery was coated with this substance, and
it was used to caulk ships in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations.
A lump of asphalt with basket impressions found at Ur suggests that the fluid
material was hardened into cakes within baskets. The Persians used bitumen only
to caulk ships (Singer et al. I 1954). Bitumen was a major component of the balms
used by the Egyptians to prepare mummies. It was secured from the Dead Sea area
(Connan 1999).
The use of “Greek Fire” is recorded during the Classical Greek Period by
Procopius (ca. 490–507?–560 CE) who states: “The Persians were the inventors of
this: having filled vessels with sulfur and that drug which the Medes call naphtha
and the Greeks “oil of Media” and lighted them, then hurled them against the framework
of battering rams, and soon set them ablaze, for this fire consumes the objects
which it touches, unless they are instantly withdrawn” (Hist. Bellorum 8.9.35–38).
During the later Byzantine Empire, the components used in Greek Fire changed
slightly. Finely ground quicklime was mixed with a petroleum product and was then
ignited by firepots. Sulfur was added to produce poisonous smoke. Julius Africanus
(fl. 220–235 CE) provides a recipe for an incendiary that uses liquid bitumen or
naphtha together with unburned sulfur.
Somewhere around the first century BCE, the Chinese began to use methane, a
natural gas. They recovered the methane by drilling. The Chinese were the first to
use petroleum and natural gas as fuel, perhaps as early as the fourth century BCE.
Shen (1989) gives a detailed account of the exploitation of oil and gas in ancient
China.
Perhaps the only use of coal as fuel in prehistoric North America was by the
Hopi people about 1300 CE in Arizona when they discovered that the coal they
found would burn. The coal was used to fire pottery to a more yellow color than had
been achieved before. Using radiocarbon evidence, Selsor et al. (2000) have shown
that Late Woodland Period inhabitants of western Pennsylvania, USA, (1415–1440
CE) extracted petroleum from the earth, perhaps for medicinal purposes.
10.7.3 Sulfur (S)
Sulfur was not shown to be an element until 1772. It is nonmetallic and occurs in
nature as a free element or combined with other elements. Sulfur can be found as
yellow crystals, masses, and crusts. It can be recovered as a native element from
numerous deposits throughout the world. Native sulfur occurs as a product of volcanism,
associated with hot springs, and in salt domes. Rich deposits of sulfur were
mined in Campania (Sicily) and the Aeolian Islands, and during the Classical Period
it was exported to Europe. Alexandrian chemists distilled or sublimed sulfur, but
not on a large scale. The earliest use of sulfur was in cave paintings in southern
Europe. In powder form, it is highly flammable and was used in matches as early
as the Roman Period.