The silver of the South Iberian El Argar Culture: A first look at production and distribution

Abstract

(1) (2) (3)More than 700 silver objects are known from the Middle Bronze Age El Argar culture, which contrasts significantly with the rest of Bronze Age Europe, where silver is mostly rare. This has traditionally been explained by the difficulties of extracting silver from complex ores by cupellation and the relative abundance of easily accessible occurrences of native silver and silver chlorides in the south of the Iberian peninsula. However, until now in the Iberian Bronze Age the use of native silver has only been inferred by the absence of evidence of cupellation. The results of trace element analysis of a series of silver objects from several Argaric settlements reveal for the first time positive evidence for the use of native silver. Lead isotope analyses show that hardly any of the objects were made of silver from known and characterised mining districts . RESUMEN

Un arma no solo de prestigio: la espada argárica de Peñalosa (Baños de la Encina, Jaén)

“…Los análisis de objetos e implementos de plata de varios yacimientos del Sureste sí parecen dejar claro que la plata nativa o los cloruros de los que están hechos no provienen de las mineralizaciones hasta ahora conocidas de Herrerías o de Sierra Almagrera. En cambio pueden proceder del distrito Linares-La Carolina e incluso del Valle de Alcudia, sin descartar otro centro por localizar (Montero Ruiz y Murillo-Barroso 2010; Bartelheim et al 2012;Murillo-Barroso 2013). Como esto mismo sucede con la plata de otros yacimientos granadinos como el Cerro de la Encina (Monachil), se sugiere que estemos en un momento donde una serie de poblados se abastecen de la misma fuente o, al menos, se sirven de recursos similares para la obtención de los objetos y complementos de plata (Moreno Onorato et al 2010).…”

An insight into the organisation of metal production in the Argaric society

“…5 and 6, Table 2). They have been compared with analyses of 30 copper-based objects from the sites of Gatas, El Argar, Fuente Álamo, La Bastida, El Barranquete, Monteagudo and Rincón de Almendricos (Stos-Gale et al, 1999;Stos-Gale, 2001; OXALID) and eight silver objects from Cerro de la Encina (Bartelheim et al, 2012;Murillo-Barroso, 2013).…”

“…Significant technological innovations, such as tin-bronze alloys, silversmithing and annealing were developed (Montero Ruiz, 1991;Rovira and Gómez Ramos, 2003). The fact that silver metallurgy production outgrew other contemporary Bronze Age societies from Iberia and Western Europe 3 was especially remarkable (Bartelheim et al, 2012;Murillo-Barroso, 2013;Lull et al, 2014b). The typology of metal objects also changed.…”

“…Few exceptions to this trend have been evident (e.g., Gilman, 1987;Chapman, 1990), with specific research on early metallurgy through the Studien zu den Anfängen der Metallurgie (SAM) project (Junghans et al, 1960(Junghans et al, , 1968, Arqueometalurgia de la Península Ibérica (PA) project (Montero Ruiz, 1993) or technological studies of new materials by the British Museum (Hook et al, 1987). Only in the past decades has the concern for international dissemination grown (e.g., Lull, 2000;Aranda Jiménez and Molina González, 2006;Bartelheim, 2007;Bartelheim et al, 2012;Aranda Jiménez, 2013;Lull et al, , 2014aAranda Jiménez et al, 2015). The large amount of archaeological evidence, effective preservation of archaeological sites and the fact that individuals were buried inside dwellings -allowing direct correlation between domestic and funerary realms-have made the Argar a key culture for the study of early social stratification.…”

Production of Silver across the Ancient World

“…For example, the silver artefacts of the Early Bronze Age Argaric culture in Spain of the second millennium BC have very low lead contents and are thus likely to have been smelted directly from silver ores. 7,8) The silver artefacts from Mahmatlar in eastern Anatolia, dated to the third millennium BC, have substantial traces of zinc and thus cannot have been cupelled. 9) Thus it is possible to begin to construct a scenario for early silver production.…”