One of Europe’s most important gold treasures was found near Alicante in 1963. It has 66 items, including gold bowls, bracelets, and charms, presumably, from 1500 to 1200 BC. The find is known as the Treasure of Villena and has been disputed by scientists because of its too advanced metalwork.
Specifically, we are talking about two different artifacts: a corroded bracelet and a small hollow hemisphere from iron-like material. Their presence was hard to explain, since iron smelting in Iberia hadn’t become widespread until 850 BC. It seems that this ancient Spanish bracelet, dating back roughly 3000 years, is not just made of ordinary iron. In fact, it has an extraterrestrial origin, as it was made from a meteorite! Naturally, such iron was considered a rare, precious metal associated with divine provenance.
To find out more, a research team from Spain’s National Archaeological Museum, led by Salvador Rovira-Llorens, conducted mass spectrometry analysis on the found artifacts, which showed a high nickel content (a telltale sign of iron’s meteoritic origin). Thus, the find may prove that ancient Iberians were competent metallurgists. Like ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, they identified and worked with iron from space centuries before metal smelting was common.
Previously, other similar findings have been reported, including Tutankhamun’s dagger from Egypt. Apart from their durability, such rare artifacts had symbolic value and were usually connected with political authority or divine power. The Treasure of Villena artifacts were probably also meant for ceremonial or elite use.
(Photo courtesy of Villena Museum (Alicante)
Although the bracelet and some other objects from the treasure had suffered corrosion, more recent non-invasive technology could allow for deeper analysis in the future. If all the evidence is fully verified, these jewelry pieces would be the first known meteoritic iron artifacts from the Iberian Peninsula.
Overall, the discovery has almost poetical significance. Not only did we look up at the sky all those years ago, we made something valuable from those very celestial objects. For some, this bracelet represents merely some metal, but for us, it’s a tiny piece of heaven that survived thousands of years.
