Abstract
The current study presents Ag isotopic values of 45 silver artifacts with known Pb isotopic composition from the Southern Levant. These items originate from seven pre-coinage silver hoards, dating from the Middle Bronze Age IIC to the end of the Iron Age (~1650–600 BCE). These are the earliest silver artifacts analyzed for Ag isotopes; all former studies were performed on coins. All the sampled silver in this study contains relatively unfractionated Ag (−2 ≤ ε109Ag ≤ 1.5) that was more likely produced from hypogene, primary Ag-bearing minerals (e.g., galena and jarosite) and not from native, supergene silver. Four of the sampled hoards containing silver from Anatolia and the West Mediterranean (Iberia and Sardinia) are associated with the Phoenician quest for silver (~950–700 BCE). A significant amount of this Phoenician silver (12/28 items) plots within a narrower range of −0.5 ≤ ε109Ag ≤ 0.5. This is in contrast to non-Phoenician silver, which mostly underwent some degree of fractionation (16/17 items ε109Ag ≥ I0.5I). The results suggest that while all silver was exploited from primary ore sources, the Phoenicians dug deeper into the deposits, reaching ore minerals that did not undergo any weathering-associated fractionation. The results also call for further investigation regarding the influence of sealing and bundling in silver hoards on post-depositional fractionation of Ag isotopes.
Highlights
Lead ores were mined to produce silver
The results support a long-held assumption that native silver was rare in antiquity (e.g., [5,55,56]) and that the source of silver throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages was from hypogene ores, rather than supergene ones where native silver primarily resides ([54], p. 348)
One of the yet unresolved questions regarding the Phoenician exploitation of metal resources is to what extent were they innovative? Did they bring about new production methods that enabled the exploitation of larger silver quantities, or were they merely fine sea traders and navigators who were able to acquire cheap silver in the West and mobilize it across the Mediterranean? As mentioned above, metal ores cannot always be dated based on the archaeological evidence on-site because recent mining often eliminated the remnants of ancient mining activities
Summary
Lead ores were mined to produce silver. The mining process included identifying potential areas for exploitation, the prospection of vertical shafts to provide access to veins of lead-rich minerals (the lead ore). Silver (Ag) was extracted from the lead ores by a two-step process: first smelting the ore in a furnace, instigating the reduction in the ore into metallic Pb–Ag, followed by cupellation, namely, oxidizing the alloy in a cupel for extracting Ag (and gold) and separating it from other metals. This technique, practiced from the 4th millennium BCE [3,4], enabled the extraction of silver from argentiferous galena (PbS) and cerussite (PbCO3) lead ores [5]. They innovatively added external Pb from nearby ores to the Ag-rich jarosites to produce silver (see more below)
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