A research of elaborate 2,900-year-old carvings in stone monuments present in Portugal has revealed a quite wonderful truth. It appears these Late Bronze Age engravings may solely have been made with hardened metal instruments, of a kind that had beforehand been discovered solely in excavations from later occasions.
The use of tempered metal instruments or devices to make rock carvings means that some type of small-scale metal trade had developed on the Iberian Peninsula by the 12 months 900 BC, which is one century sooner than steelmaking was believed to have began in the space.
This paradigm-shifting conclusion emerged from analysis carried out by a group of archaeologists from Portugal, Spain and Germany, who had been led by Ralph Araque Gonzalez, an skilled in prehistoric archaeology from the University of Freiburg. The scientists printed the outcomes of their work in the Journal of Archaeological Science , detailing how they found that solely metal instruments may have been used on the stone monuments.
A) Detail of the kind of quartz used for the rock carvings (Rafael Ferreiro Mählmann / University of Freiburg ) B) Mesoscopic overview of the etched pattern. (Bastian Asmus / University of Freiburg )
Was Steel Needed to Etch Such Hard Rock?
For the functions of this research, the researchers checked out engraved five-foot-tall (1.5 m) pillars of stone often known as stelae, which have been present in abundance at varied Iberian Peninsula websites . The stelae in query function intricate and punctiliously ready carvings of human beings, animals, weapons, chariots and ornaments, imagery that’s acquainted to archaeologists and historians who’ve studied the artwork and iconography of historical societies.
What is most attention-grabbing right here is that the stone used to create the Late Bronze Age stelae in Portugal was a very onerous rock often known as silicate quartz sandstone. Tools comprised of a metallic more durable than this cut-resistant stone would have been required to create engravings. According to Gonzalez and his analysis group solely metal instruments may have gotten the job carried out.
More particularly, this type of stone may solely have been engraved utilizing instruments comprised of metal that has been tempered, which means it had been handled with excessive warmth to make it stronger and extra proof against fracturing. “This is an extremely hard rock that cannot be worked with bronze or stone tools,” Gonzalez stated in a University of Freiburg assertion . “The people of the Final Bronze Age in Iberia were capable of tempering steel. Otherwise they would not have been able to work the pillars.”
The research discovered that the stone may solely have been engraved utilizing tempered metal, created below excessive warmth circumstances. (Ralph Araque Gonzalez / University of Freiburg )
Testing the Tempered Steel Hypothesis
But this assertion shouldn’t be primarily based on logical deduction alone. To show that solely tempered metal may do the trick, they determined to do some hands-on experimenting. In collaboration with an expert stonemason, Gonzalez’s group tried to recreate the historical engravings in silicate quartz utilizing instruments comprised of totally different supplies, together with (amongst others) bronze, stone and tempered metal.
While the metal chisel utilized in the research did need to be sharpened repeatedly throughout the carving course of, the researchers had been in a position to make engravings in the onerous rock with it. They had been unable to do that with the different instruments, as they predicted earlier than the experiment started.
It ought to be famous that the metal chisel utilized in the research was not chosen randomly. It was really a reproduction of an actual and fairly historical metal chisel, a well-preserved instrument that was unearthed in the early 2000s at a web site in Portugal often known as Rocha do Vigio.
Like a lot of the Late Bronze Age stelae discovered on the Iberian Peninsula , the chisel had beforehand been dated to round the 12 months 900 BC. Engravers working at the moment would have had entry to sharp metal instruments, it seems, confirming that metal devices may very effectively have been used to make the carved stelae.
Measurements of the chisel confirmed it contained sufficient carbon (greater than .3 p.c) to be thought-about metal (much less carbon and it will nonetheless be labeled as iron). Notably, the researchers additionally discovered traces of iron minerals near the Rocha do Vigio web site, indicating that craftspeople may have sourced their metallic regionally.
“The chisel from Rocha do Vigio and the context where it was found show that iron metallurgy, including the production and tempering of steel, were probably indigenous developments of decentralized small communities in Iberia, and not due to the influence of later colonization processes,” Araque Gonzalez stated, crediting the prehistoric locals for his or her ingenuity and inventiveness.
The chisel from Rocha do Vigio, size ca. 18 cm. (Ralph Araque Gonzalez / University of Freiburg )
Honoring Iberia’s Original Master Steelmakers
Before this new discovery, the earliest confirmed use of hardened metal in Iberia was linked to the Early Iron Age (800 to 600 BC). This was solely a short while earlier than the Late Bronze Age (1,000 to 800 BC) stelae had been produced, suggesting a continuity of the area’s steelmaking tradition that bridged the hole between the finish of 1 Age and the starting of the subsequent.
Evidence exhibits that large-scale metal manufacturing for instruments and weapons solely started on the Iberian Peninsula throughout Roman occasions, in the second century AD. But this metal was of apparently poor-to-mediocre high quality, as was revealed by checks of metallic objects from that point that exposed a low stage of carbon content material.
During the late medieval interval, European blacksmiths lastly progressed far sufficient of their work to supply superior tempered metal. But it appears they might have solely been recreating the achievements of Iberian blacksmiths who lived greater than 2,000 years earlier than them. These expert craftworkers had been making metal instruments that had been sturdy and durable sufficient to carve distinctive photos in a few of the hardest rock discovered anyplace on the planet, which represents a outstanding achievement in any time interval.
Top picture: Replica of Capilla stelae. Source: Ralph Araque Gonzalez / University of Freiburg
By Nathan Falde
