Gold has been a valuable and coveted metal for thousands of years. And during the early Bronze Age, the people of the Old World apparently accepted long trade routes, as researchers around Ernst Pernicka from the Curt Engelhorn Center Archaeometry found out in Mannheim. This is how the gold, which came to light at partly far away locations of the early Bronze Age, comes from the same source - from Troy, Georgia, the Sumerian city in today's Iraq and from Polochni on the Aegean Island of Lemnos. In addition, it is precious metal from secondary deposits, i.e. washing gold, for example from rivers, as the working group in the specialist magazine "Journal of Archaeological Science" writes. The team could not yet determine the exact place of origin of the gold, but it suspects that it came from Georgia.
The working group analyzed a total of 61 gold objects, which are dated to a time window of approximately 2500 to 2000 BC. For finds from Troy and poliochni, the team examined pieces at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Heinrich Schliemann's wife Sophia (1852–1932) may have left these gold finds from Troy to the house. The much more famous exhibits, such as the Treasure of Priam, are now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow; Pernicka & Co were apparently unable to inspect them – apart from a ring from the deposit find, which is also kept in Athens today.
For their analysis, the researchers used a special portable laser device with which tiny sample quantities that are not visible to the mere eye can be melted out.
This has the advantage that the valuable objects remain largely undamaged.
In addition, with the help of the laser method mentioned, the composition of the gold can be tapped much more precisely than with a portable X -ray fluorescence device, which only scans the surface of the objects.
Archaeometric analysis of the samples and comparison with findings from other studies revealed that the gold contains high concentrations of tin, palladium and platinum. Pre-industrial gold is typically not as pure as modern precious metal and has various other elements such as silver, copper or tin. On the basis of the trace elements, the researchers were now able to determine the origin of the metal: "Tin was found in almost all samples in concentrations between about 10 and 1900 milligrams per kilogram, which indicates that it is mainly alluvial gold," says the study. Elements such as palladium and platinum supported this assumption because both are not normally found in rock gold.
The goldsmiths worked for Troy and Poliochni
Some of the gold chains from Troy and Poliochni are similar not only in metal composition, but also in design. According to this, the same workshop may have made these pieces of jewelry. The goldsmiths may have worked either in Poliochni or Troy – both places are about 60 kilometers apart. Stylistically similar pieces of jewelry, namely gold pendants with spiral patterns, were also found in Troy and in the royal tombs of your. The similarities in form already suggested connections between the two sites; the current gold analyses now confirm that there may have been contacts between Anatolia, the Aegean region and Mesopotamia. According to a press release from the University of Tübingen, Pernicka concludes: "So there must have been trade relations between these distant regions."
Where the gold of the jewelry originally came from, the researchers have not yet been able to determine without doubt. "If we consider the proportion of trace elements in the gold from Troy, Poliochni and Ur, Bronze Age gold from Georgia shows the greatest agreement with the mentioned sites," explains Pernicka. "However, we still lack data and investigations from other regions and from other objects to confirm this assumption.«
Troy, Ur, Poliochni - the site on the island of Lemnos should least be known from the three places. Italian archaeologists released the prehistoric city in the 20th century. Poliochni was one of the earliest cities in Europe, which was already in the 4th millennium BC. BC existed. At the site of the foundation, houses, paved roads with a sewage system, squares and community buildings came to light.
