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Exercise 1. Make a written translation of the text without using a dictionary.



 

Exercise 2. Look up for words you didn’t manage to translate. Proofread your translation

Text 4

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use. Metallurgy is commonly used in the craft of metalworking.

 

History

 

The first evidence of human metallurgy dates from the 5th and 6th millennium BC, and was found in the archaeological sites of Majdanpek, Yarmovac and Plocnik, Serbia. These examples include a copper axe from 5,500BC belonging to the Vincha culture. Other signs of human metallurgy are found from the third millennium BC in places like Palmela (Portugal), Cortes de Navarra (Spain), and Stonehenge (United Kingdom). However, as often happens with the study of prehistoric times, the ultimate beginnings cannot be clearly defined and new discoveries are continuous and ongoing.

 

Silver, copper, tin and meteoric iron can be found native, allowing a limited amount of metalworking in early cultures. Egyptian weapons made from meteoric iron in about 3000 B.C. were highly prized as "Daggers from Heaven". However, by learning to get copper and tin by heating rocks and combining those two metals to make an alloy called bronze, the technology of metallurgy began about 3500 B.C. with the Bronze Age.

The extraction of iron from its ore into a workable metal is much more difficult. It appears to have been invented by the Hittites in about 1200 B.C., beginning the Iron Age. The secret of extracting and working iron was a key factor in the success of the Philistines.

Historical developments in ferrous metallurgy can be found in a wide variety of past cultures and civilizations. This includes the ancient and medieval kingdoms and empires of the Middle East and Near East, ancient Egypt, ancient Nubia, and Anatolia (Turkey), Ancient Nok, Carthage, the Greeks and Romans of ancient Europe, medieval Europe, ancient and medieval China, ancient and medieval India, ancient and medieval Japan, etc. Of interest to note is that many applications, practices, and devices associated or involved in metallurgy were possibly established in ancient China before Europeans mastered these crafts (such as the innovation of the blast furnace, cast iron, steel). However, modern research suggests that Roman technology was far more sophisticated than hitherto supposed, especially in mining methods, metal extraction and forging. They were, for example, expert in hydraulic mining methods well before the Chinese, or any other civilization of the time.

A 16th century book by Georg Agricola called De re metallica describes the highly developed and complex processes of mining metal ores, metal extraction and metallurgy of the time. Agricola has been described as the "father of metallurgy"

 







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