Plata semirrefinada para los plateros de la Edad del Hierro en el Mediterráneo: un mecanismo para identificar la plata ibérica

Abstract

A fragment of a silver ingot recovered from the Phoenician settlement of La Rebanadilla, near Malaga, in south-east Iberia has been investigated using lead isotope and compositional analyses. The ingot, which was found at the lowest levels of the site, potentially dates from 11 th -9 th century BC, placing it alongside the hoards of hacksilver found in the southern Levant in terms of chronology. The Pb crustal age (from lead isotope data) and compositional data support that the ingot derives from Hercynian-age ores with high bismuth concentrations. This signature is consistent with the Pyritic belt of south-west Iberia, particularly around the ancient mining areas of Riotinto. It is proposed that the silver for this ingot was extracted from jarosite ores at Riotinto, where it was coarsely refined through cupellation into an ingot still retaining high levels of lead, before being transported to La Rebanadilla, which was a potential point of departure back to the Phoenician homeland. The significance of transporting silver in a form which would have required further refining is discussed in relation to the movement of silver by the Phoenicians in the Iron Age Mediterranean. A new mechanism is proposed to explain the elusive nature of Iberian silver in the archaeological record.

The Origin of Tel Dor Hacksilver and the Westward Expansion of the Phoenicians in the Early Iron Age: The Cypriot Connection

“…Until recently, the common belief was that the silver-bearing ores on Cyprus were not exploited in antiquity. This idea was challenged recently by J. R. Wood (2019). Similarly, on the basis of the information presented above, we suggest that the people who first extracted silver from jarosite ores in southwest Iberia may have acquired and practiced the necessary skills to recognize and exploit this type of ore, prior to any westward reconnaissance missions across the Mediterranean to Iberia.…”

“…The abundance of silver objects from tombs in Sidon, to the north of Tel Dor, has been used to support the idea that there was extensive and sustained trade with Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age (Véron and Le Roux 2004;Doumet-Serhal 2004). Of the hoards of the southern Levant previously reanalyzed (Wood, Montero-Ruiz, and Martinón-Torres 2019), the silver recovered from the twelfth-to the eleventh-century BCE site of Tell el 'Ajjul was found to have compositional and lead isotopic signatures consistent with the Taurus mountains of Anatolia. This source attribution is therefore uncontroversial and may be viewed as a continuation of these earlier trade routes.…”

“…2 show the locations of these hoards. This analysis concluded that not only was most of this hacksilver mixed, but also that it probably derived from three main silver ore sources: the Pyritic belt of southern Iberia, the Taurus mountains in Anatolia, and a third unknown source (Wood, Montero-Ruiz, and Martinón-Torres 2019).…”

“…This is further confounded when the LIA fields overlap. A potentially simple strategy to overcome this problem has been proposed (Wood et al 2017;Wood, Montero-Ruiz, and Martinón-Torres 2019). The strategy involves two steps: (1) LIA values are used to calculate the crustal age (also known as the model age) of the ore from which the silver derived (using a two-stage evolution model and the parameters of Desaulty et al 2012); this age is then (2) plotted against the levels of gold found in silver, given that gold is a useful geological indicator for a silver source as it is likely to survive the smelting and refining operations.…”

“…Details of how Fig. 5 (upper) was constructed and how each line can be interpreted have already been presented elsewhere (Wood, Montero-Ruiz, and Martinón-Torres 2019), but are summarized here. The data cluster at point 1 corresponds to the crustal ages and levels of gold within the silver, which are consistent with the Taurus mountains in Anatolia.…”