OUTER space and the Bronze Age do not sit well in the same sentence – they may both have existed at the same time, but anyone based on Earth back then would not have known much, or anything, about what lies beyond.
These pieces – known as the 'Treasure of Villena' – are over 3,200 years old (photo: MUVI/Museovillena.com)
Yet, inadvertently – or so it is believed – material from space found its way into the craft and tool workshops of Spain back in the 10th to the 13th centuries B.C.E. (BC).
Archaeologists have revealed astonishing new information about findings from a dig in Villena, western Alicante province, that have been on display in the local museum for 60 years.
An article published in Science Alert says parts of the 59 objects that form the Tesoro de Villena ('Treasure of Villena') were made with 'extra-terrestrial' substances that long pre-date the humans who used them.
'Communal treasure': “There were no kings and queens back then”
Discovered in 1963, valuable pieces made from gold, silver, amber and iron – mostly jewellery and other decorative items – have been exhibited at Villena Archaeological Museum ever since, but recent analyses of them have unearthed a whole new backstory.
At least two of the 59, manufactured between 1400 and 1200 B.C.E., were made using steel from a meteorite that had fallen to Earth 'approximately a million years ago', explain researchers.
Archaeologists working on the Villena dig, who discovered the treasure in 1963 (photo: Alicante University)
Some of the other 57 may also have been created using space rocks, but so far, detailed studies have only been made of a C-shaped iron bracelet and a gold-plated hollow sphere with a sword handle engraved onto it.
“The link between gold and steel is important, since both elements carry great symbolic and social value,” explains main research author Ignacio Montero Ruiz, who works for the History Institute of Spain.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com