Production Sites of Early Iron Age Greek Bronze Tripod Cauldrons: First Evidence from Neutron Activation Analysis of Casting Ceramics

Abstract

Bronze tripod cauldrons were one of the most prestigious types of objects in Greece during the Early Iron Age (EIA). Because of its character as an exchange object with a value easy to assess, the tripod became an attribute used in the communication of personal status. Consequently, the distribution of archaeologically recovered tripods can be used to identify hotspots of elitist interaction. Fortunately, quite a lot of the extant tripod fragments have a clay core and/or show preserved residues of the casting molds on their surface. In our pilot study with 61 samples from Olympia and five samples from Kalapodi, it is shown that neutron activation analysis (NAA) allows a coherent internal chemical grouping of the clay pastes used in the ancient casting workshops. Furthermore, comparative material from workshop debris and also geological samples allow a geographical localization of many of the chemical groups. In general terms, NAA therefore seems to be an effective method to define production sites of artifacts cast in the lost wax technique. In the case of EIA tripods, sites and travel routes of workshops can be traced as well as travel routes of clients. This provides new hard data for modeling both the political and the economic structures of EIA Greece.

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