Rotary tools and techniques for gold metallurgy during late prehistory in the Iberian Peninsula
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Abstract
We have investigated goldwork technology by studying working and tool marks, ethnographic and iconographic analogies, written sources and by using non-destructive analytical methods. Our research focuses on the Iberian Peninsula where there is abundant archaeological material dating from the earliest times to the end of Antiquity. We understand technology as a cultural expression
inseparable from the social, economic and political context in which it appears, and are interested in technological change, persistence and transmission. Traditional research had not detected the metallurgical use of rotary motion tools until the introduction of Roman technology. We have identified the use of a reciprocating lathe with a horizontal axis for shaping the wax model used in lost wax castings, at least as early as the late Bronze Age, mainly along the Atlantic seaboard. The use of this sophisticated working process appears restricted to specifi critual or symbolic objects in gold and bronze. The synthesis presented is based on the study of Iberian gold hoards. They include the Late Bronze Age Villena hoard, the El Carambolo and Lebrija hoards of the Orientalizing period (both illustrating technological transmission and persistence), and the Castro culture gold torcs of the Second Iron Age.
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