A newly discovered Bronze Age copper factory in the deserts of southern Jordan suggests that some of the first great cities were built on the backs of sweatshop laborers, according to a team of archaeologists led by Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego. "The site is almost as well preserved as Pompeii," says Levy. "We can see 70 rooms, hallways, and courtyards where copper was smelted, refined, melted, cast, and finished into ingots, axes, chisels, and whatnot. It's a highly specialized assembly line, which is surprising when you consider that the Industrial Revolution was still thousands of years in the future." Researchers suspect that the factory was manned by migrant workers during fall and winter months and closed during the hot summers. The site was buried during a massive earthquake around 2700 B.C.
Items produced in the copper factory have been found in major cities of ...
