Long before iron smelting became common in ancient Greece, some members of the elite were wearing rings made from metal that had fallen from the sky. A new analysis of Bronze Age objects found 13 iron pieces with enough nickel to indicate a meteoritic origin, with most of the likely examples dating to the Late Bronze Age.
Iron was rare in the Bronze Age because widespread iron smelting had not yet become common. That made meteoritic iron an unusual source of the metal for people who could obtain it.
Earlier archaeological work has identified meteoritic iron in objects from several parts of the ancient world, including Egypt, the Near East, Europe and Asia. But whether Bronze Age Greeks used the material had remained uncertain. Iron objects from Greece had been difficult to test because some older analytical methods could damage rare museum specimens.
The researchers used handheld X-ray instruments that can measure the chemical composition of metal without damaging the objects. They examined 91 Bronze Age and Early Iron Age iron objects from 33 archaeological sites, held in 19 museums.
The key clue was nickel. Iron from meteorites can contain high amounts of nickel, so the researchers used nickel levels to identify objects that might have been made from meteoritic iron.
Thirteen of the 91 objects had nickel concentrations high enough to indicate a possible meteoritic origin. Ten were considered very likely to have been made from meteoritic iron, while three remained possible cases that require additional testing.
The objects included tools, weapons, jewelry and other ornamental pieces. But among the objects tested, only finger rings were made from meteoritic iron.
The rings were found with other valuable objects
Most of the meteoritic iron rings came from tombs containing other valuable objects. The rings were also made in combination with gold, silver or bronze.
That combination led the researchers to interpret the rings as symbols of status and power. Most of the nickel-bearing rings were found in richly furnished tholos and chamber tombs, including contexts possibly associated with palatial settings at Mycenae, Vapheio or Kakovatos.
One ring came from a different but still distinguished setting. The Anemospilia ring was found on the finger of a man whom excavators interpreted as a high-ranking priest.
The researchers therefore associate the meteoritic iron rings with elite individuals rather than ordinary use.
The meteorite iron may have been imported
There is an important uncertainty about where the metal originally came from.
Meteorites are rarely found in Greece because exposed iron can be damaged by the local climate. In more arid regions such as Egypt, meteorites are more likely to survive and be found.
Based on this difference, the researchers suggest that the meteoritic iron used in the Greek objects was probably imported as raw material from Egypt. However, there is no direct evidence identifying the original location of the meteorites.
The meteoritic rings disappeared as smelted iron spread
The timing of the rings provides another important part of the story.
Twelve of the 13 rings identified as possible or likely meteoritic iron date to the Late Bronze Age. The other objects that were assigned to later periods did not contain enough nickel to indicate a meteoritic origin.
This pattern suggests that the use of meteoritic iron for rings flourished during the Late Bronze Age and then disappeared before or around the collapse of the Mycenaean palace system. The decline also occurred around the period when iron smelting began to become established.
The researchers identified a positive smelted origin for 78 of the iron objects they examined from the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The earliest undisputed examples date to the 14th–13th centuries BCE.
Those earliest examples were a pendant from Dendra and a ring from Skoura. They are the only objects in the study that provide evidence for the use of both smelted and meteoritic iron during the same period.
After the Mycenaean palaces fell, the use of smelted iron became more widespread. The researchers place this increase roughly in the 12th and 11th centuries BCE, later than the corresponding development in the Near East.
The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
