Article: Bronze age Ireland: the countrys golden era

[Orchid]

In the early Bronze Age, Ireland had more than its fair share of gold. Was it imported, or are there forgotten deposits of gold? Chemical investigations suggest that raw material for Ireland=B4s prehistoric gold hoard may have been sourced from near neighbours. An alternative explanation is that there are forgotten Irish deposits rich in gold. Visit the National Museum on Kildare Street, Dublin, and you will be struck by the sheer number of gold objects. The desire for this precious metal was strong in prehistoric, pagan Ireland. The array of gold ornaments includes collars, torcs and bracelets, mostly from the Bronze Age, 2,200 to 800 BC.

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[Stephen_Walker1]

Interesting what they say about the lead isotopes. I have to question the assumption that the trace elements are necessarily from the natural deposit. Couldn't it also be a contamination introduced during the melting and processing of the material?

[charlesian2000]

Interesting what they say about the lead isotopes. I have to
question the assumption that the trace elements are necessarily
from the natural deposit. Couldn't it also be a contamination
introduced during the melting and processing of the material?

Maybe, a bit of conjecture posed that, sometimes the period metal caster would throw in "any" metal to extend the material.

Some dark age bronze even had iron in the mix. A bit of cross contamination. maybe, by design. maybe.

Will we ever know for sure. nope. That's why it's called the dark age, and we know relatively little (compared to other periods of history) about that period of European history.

Regards Charles A.

[Stephen_Walker1]

Maybe, a bit of conjecture posed that, sometimes the period metal
caster would throw in "any" metal to extend the material.

I suppose if the lead isotopes are fairly consistent from one piece to another that would indicate a common source. Even if it was a result of contamination from the process, it would indicate a consistent process with the lead coming from the same source each time. But the gold in these Bronze Age objects is generally pretty high quality, as I recall. A great case of casters mixing precious and base metals with out much concern for quality would be the Dark Age Pictish hoard found at St. Ninian's Isle in the Shetlands in 1958. That stuff was apparently made using a mix of old Roman silver and bronze. The material ranges in silver content from 91% down to 17%, with most of the objects being between 40 & 60% silver.