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New Study of Balearic Island Bronze Age Swords Reveals Complex Origins
A recent study revealed many new details about the manufacture, material composition, and cultural importance of Late Bronze Age swords recovered during various 20th century excavations on Spain’s Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean. This cache of weapons includes artifacts that are approximately 3,000 years old, with the collection as a whole dating to the years 1000 through 800 BC.
In the new study, which was just published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of the Balearic Islands, led by archaeologist Laura Perelló Mateo, explain the results of their scientific analysis of these unique artifacts. They carefully examined these objects to determine the manufacturing techniques used to make them, while also measuring the chemical and isotopic compositions of their metals to determine their sources.
Interestingly, the Balearic swords they looked at exhibited signs of local manufacturing traditions mixed with ideas that originated elsewhere.
“These swords incorporate the use of production techniques that were brought over from Iberia throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Ages,” the study authors wrote in their journal article. They mention lost-wax casting, the use of complex bronze alloys (made from copper, tin and lead), and the creation of compound objects as representations of imported manufacturing and design innovations.
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