Making of the Copper Axe

                                                                                              09.02.06 (D/M/Y)

                                                Making of the Copper Axe

        The glowing ashes illuminated four faces riddled with loose hair and moist with sweat. The cool night breeze blew the smoke of their fire this way and that. While the smoke danced the four men, dressed in animal skins, were hard at work blowing air rhythmically into the depths of the fire through hollowed sticks. For hours nothing disturbed their work. In a trancelike state they blew and blew until the great eye of the moon opened and gaping at them with interest and set of on its journey through the sky. The lungs of these men soon began to ache. The smoke choked them and the heat burned their faces, but that did not bother them. These men could hear only the crackling of the fire; they could see only the shimmering flames and the enchanting glow. Soon, as the great eye approached its throne, smoke figures began to clamber out of the glowing ashes. They danced and engulfed the fire and the small depression that protected it from the wind. The sound of rattles and drums could be heard in the crackling of the flames. The night breeze whistled in the crevasses of rocks and dark clouds swirled in the sky threatening to drown the night traveler before it reached its destination. Meanwhile the four beings drew air into their lungs more and more often with crazed eyes seeing only the glowing center of their circle. In the distance thunder struck with a deafening roar and it was done. The men stopped blowing: the trance was broken. The smoke figures dissolved in the air, which was now completely still. With great reverence the men dug in the glowing remnants of the fire and extracted a clay bowl containing a blackened rock. They chipped at this with stones to reveal a marine blue substance. The men marveled at this and as soon as it cooled they passed it around and examined it again and again. They could not help but be in wonder of the great magic feat they had accomplished.




* Homo Sapiens Sapiens or modern man first learned to fashion metal tools in the copper age (An era which lasted from 4,000 to 2,200 B.C. in Central Europe.) Pieces of copper would be put into fires and heated to great temperatures at which the copper would melt. This process would remove much of the impurities which could be chipped away leaving a copper ingot to be fashioned into tools like axe blades.