A combination of scientific techniques from a number of fields now enables scientists to solve these historical and archaeological mysteries. A new study using rare samples of ancient Phoenician silver items found in archeological digs in Israel proposes a route for their spreading westward – and even strengthens the theory that it was the search for sources of metals that pushed them farther and farther from their original region. The study, “Lead isotopes in silver reveal the earliest Phoenician quest for metals in the west Mediterranean,” was published on Monday in the prestigious scientific journal PNAS by scientists from Haifa University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.This reminds me of another recent story about using ice cores from Greenland to track the state of Punic coin minting via traces of lead pollution.
The study focuses on three large caches of Phoenician silver found in Israel, at Tel Dor, Acre and Ein Hofez. It attempts to answer the question of where they came from, because the precious metal is not found naturally in the Mediterranean region. The research was part of the doctorate research conducted by Tzilla Eshel, the lead author from the archeology department at Haifa University.
Cross-file under Technology Watch and Material Culture.
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