Strange metal from beyond Earth found in ancient treasure cache

Metal recovered from meteorite is a mystery to scientists

A pair of rusted objects have been discovered among the glittering gold treasures of the Iberian Bronze Age that may be the most valuable ever found. The researchers pointed out that the bracelet and the rusted hollow hemisphere, decorated with gold, were not forged from metal, but from iron from meteorites that fell from the sky.

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The discovery made by Salvador Rovira-Llorens indicates that more than 3 thousand years ago, metalworking technologies and techniques in Iberia were much more advanced than scientists thought.

The Villena hoard, consisting of 66 objects, mostly gold, was discovered more than 60 years ago, in 1963, in what is now Alicante, Spain, and has since been considered one of the most important examples of Bronze Age jewelry in the Iberian Peninsula and throughout the world. . Europe.

However, determining the age of the collection was somewhat difficult because of two items: a small hollow hemisphere, which is believed to be part of the hilt of a scepter or sword, and a bracelet. Both of them have, according to archaeologists, a “ferruginous” appearance. view – that is, they appear to be made of iron.

In the Iberian Peninsula, the Iron Age, when iron began to replace bronze, began around 850 BC. The problem is that the gold materials date back to between 1500 and 1200 BC. So figuring out where the iron-like artifacts fit into the context of Villena's treasure was something of a mystery.

But iron ore — not the only source of malleable iron. There are many iron artifacts around the world dating back to the pre-Iron Age period that were made from meteorites. According to archaeologists, the most famous is the meteorite iron dagger of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, but there are other types of Bronze Age weapons.

There is a way to tell the difference: iron from meteorites has a much higher nickel content than iron mined from bowels of the Earth. Therefore, the researchers received permission from the Municipal Archaeological Museum of Villena, which houses the collection, to carefully test the two artifacts and determine how much nickel they contain.

They carefully sampled both artifacts and subjected the material to mass spectrometry to determine their composition. Despite the high degree of corrosion that changes the elemental composition of the artifact, the results strongly suggest that both the hemisphere and the bracelet were made from meteoric iron.

This clearly resolves the dilemma of how these two artifacts relate to rest of the collection: they were made around the same period, from approximately 1400 to 1200 BC.

«Evidence suggests that the cap and bracelet from the Villena hoard are now the first two items that can be attributed to meteoritic iron on the Iberian Peninsula, — the researchers explain in their article. — Which is consistent with the chronology of the Late Bronze Age, preceding the beginning of widespread production of terrestrial iron.

Now, due to the fact that the objects are so heavily rusted, scientists believe that more modern, non-invasive methods can be applied to them,  to obtain more detailed data that would help confirm the findings.