ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The international conference on " the Beginnings of the Use of Metals and Alloys" (BUMA) is one of the oldest and most prestigious platforms for the presentation of research related to metallurgical heritage especially of Asia. BUMA was founded in 1981 by two eminent archaeometallurgists Prof. Robert Maddin in Philadelphia, USA and Prof Tsun Ko in Beijing, China. Since then the research presented at this conference series has increasingly established Asia to be one of the major cradles of the development of ancient metallurgy. From Beijing in 1981 BUMA has traveled to Zhengzhou, China (1986), Sanmenxia, China (1992), Matsue, Japan (1998) Gyeongju, Korea (2002) and Beijing, China (2006). For the first time this conference will be held in India in 2009. The National Institute of Advanced Studies in the Indian Institute of Science Campus in Bangalore will be the venue.

The Asian region is also one which faces numerous challenges in an era of globalisation for the preservation of heritage, metal crafts and traditional knowledge systems and intangible heritage so that this conference will also play a role in raising such awareness.

The field of archaeometallurgy has been the subject of increasing interest in the last few decades and intense research has deepened our knowledge in many ways. The conference will provide a forum for discussion on all aspects of the field with a special focus on Asian materials, interactions between Eurasian cultures and Asian connected research. Nevertheless studies on non-Asian materials which are relevant to the field of archaeometallurgy will be accepted as topics. Papers presented at the conference and accepted by the editorial committee will be published in CD form. A selection of the papers will be published in a dedicated volume and will include also non-Asian topics. Special attention should be given to the archaeological and historical background of the studies and to the interaction between specialized researchers. The conference language will be English.

As in the previous BUMA editions the papers will be grouped in different sessions, depending on their topics and their chronology. The suggested themes can be related to:

Metallurgy and Interaction across Eurasia, Ancient Iron and Steel Technology,

History and Production of Copper-based Alloys, Precious Metals, Metallurgical

Processes, Metalware Production, Metal Workshops.

We will try and avoid parallel sessions, but the poster session will allow maximum participation.