Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – In 2022, a complete plano-convex ingot was discovered in 2022 the village of Särdal along the west coast of Sweden. It’s a significant archaeological find because such a round heavy metal object was found in the country for the first time.
Image source
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg analyses on the ingot, and at first, it was believed to be a Bronze Age artifact due to its distinctive shape and size, but the ingot was revealed to be composed of a copper-zinc-tin-lead alloy.
According to Serena Sabatini, Associate Professor of Archaeology and a scholar of European and Mediterranean Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Studies, this composition is characteristic of materials from the Iron Age and subsequent periods. These ingots are frequently discovered, mainly within the Mediterranean region, as well as in continental Europe and along the Atlantic coast. Their primary function was to facilitate the transportation of metal during the Bronze and Iron Ages.
The most common are the so-called plano-convex ingots, which have been found in considerable numbers on Bronze Age and Iron Age shipwrecks confirming their use as means of metal transportation. Ingots have also been found in hoards from various regions both in full-size and as fragments, possibly ready to be melted and used, researchers write in the paper.
The rod ingots from the Ilawa Lakeland area in northeastern Poland. Image source
However, due to the artifact’s solitary discovery and lack of datable archaeological context, the team conducted isotopic and chemical analyses to ascertain its composition and propose a potential chronology. The results of these analyses revealed the ingot was composed of a copper-zinc-tin-lead alloy characteristic of the Iron Age and later periods.
”Thanks to the collaborative climate of the archaeometallurgy research world- we teamed up with a group of Polish scholars, who were working with some Iron Age finds which have the almost exact composition of our ingot.”, says Serena Sabatini.
She emphasizes the importance of networking and international collaboration in uncovering patterns and data that may be hidden when focusing solely on a local context. This work underscores the crucial role of teamwork and data sharing. She emphasizes that without the effective collaboration with their Polish colleagues, achieving such remarkable results would not have been possible.
The study employs well-established analytical methods in archaeometallurgy, a specialized branch of archaeology focused on the examination of ancient metals. These methods include lead isotope and trace element analyses of metal artifacts. Since the 1980s, such techniques have been utilized to investigate both the composition and origin of metals, allowing researchers to identify the specific mineral regions from which these metals were extracted.
In this study, the team have advanced the field by integrating newly acquired data with existing historical and archaeological information. This approach has enabled them to propose a historical context for both the unique Särdal plano-convex ingot and the rod ingots from the Ilawa Lakeland area in northeastern Poland.
The remarkable similarity in metal composition across these artifacts supports previous hypotheses regarding interactions and networking within the Baltic region during the Nordic pre-Roman Iron Age, as explained by Serena Sabatini.
Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Staff Writer