Treasure from the stars? 3000-year-old iron artefact may not be from Earth-- Suggests study
Among some of these discoveries, some artefacts contain truths that stretch back to the cosmos. New research suggests that two relatively dull-looking artefacts from one of Europe's most stunning Bronze Age treasures may have origins in space.
A
study
has revealed that two unexpected and corroded-looking objects have proven to be of great value. A 3000-year-old treasure holds metal from the stars among the 66 gold items discovered in the 1963 Treasure of Villena in Alicante, Spain.
A bracelet and a hollow hemisphere, unlike the rest of the golden hoard, appeared to be made of iron. After all, the Iron Age in the Iberian Peninsula didn't begin until around 850 BCE, and the Villena gold is dated between 1500 and 1200 BCE, which is almost 650 years later.
Researchers, led by Salvador Rovira-Llorens, now-retired head of conservation at Spain's National Archaeological Museum, decided to dig deeper.
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They proposed that the iron might not be from Earth at all. Instead, it could be meteoritic iron, a metal from space, known to have been used in rare Bronze Age artefacts like Pharaoh Tutankhamun's dagger.
To test this, the team obtained permission from the Municipal Archaeological Museum of Villena to take tiny samples from the bracelet and the cap. Using mass spectrometry, they analysed the metal's composition and found signs of high nickel content, which is an important clue for its meteoritic origin.
According to the researchers, 'The available data suggest that the cap and bracelet from the Treasure of Villena would currently be the first two pieces attributable to meteoritic iron in the Iberian Peninsula, which is compatible with a Late Bronze chronology, prior to the beginning of the widespread production of terrestrial iron,' as published in Trabajos de Prehistoria.
While corrosion on the artefacts limits how definitive the findings can be, the results strongly support the theory that these pieces were crafted from metal that fell from the sky. The team also suggests newer, non-invasive analysis could provide even clearer evidence.
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