An analysis is made by combining information from active mining areas and their output, trade routes and types of copper available on the market. A next step will be to investigate the magnitude and variety of copper processing industries in the Republic and to get an idea of the metallurgical knowledge available at that time, at mines and refineries, foundries and workshops.

This reconstruction of the availability of materials and knowledge in the Netherlands will be the starting point for the interpretation of material properties of a wide selection of objects that will be analysed during the final part of this study.