The Phoenician expansion of the eighth–seventh centuries bce prompted a proliferation of metallurgical activity in the western Mediterranean, both at Phoenician sites and among indigenous groups eager to capitalize on the Phoenician demand for metals. In two of the best known centers of metallurgical production, Carthage (iron) and southwest Iberia (silver), different production regimes coexisted, such that the output of larger (and presumably state-sponsored) workshops was supplemented by widespread production at a smaller scale (Kaufman et al. 2016; 2014; Johnston 2013). The ubiquity of metal production in the west was made possible by the rapid spread of silver cupellation and iron smelting and smithing technologies. The technologies were adapted to fit the novel ore mineralizations encountered in the west (Valério, Silva, et al. 2015; Craddock and Meeks 1987). The galena ores of the Iberian pyrite belt at Río Tinto and Aznalcóllar, for example, differed from the oxides that had been exploited in the Near East up until then, owing to their richness in sulfur and paucity in lead. Silver production in southwest Iberia began thanks to the development of new smelting procedures, including roasting ores to eliminate sulfur and the addition of metallic lead as an attractor for silver during the smelt. Back east, the exploitation of similar silver-rich galena deposits at Laurion, in the Aegean, commenced around the same time as at Río Tinto in Spain (Renzi and Rovira 2015).
By the mid-sixth century bce, demand for metals from the eastern Mediterranean appears to have dropped, and metal production was scaled down to the level of the self-sustaining local and regional economies that sprang up after the breakup of the Phoenician mercantile network. The technological innovations that marked the initial Phoenician expansion to the west tapered off, although as Carthage expanded following the sixth century, large-scale mining and production resumed in Iberia and Sardinia. Carthage itself would remain an important producer of iron, steel, and other metals until its destruction at Roman hands.
Iron Age Metallurgy of the Phoenician Homeland
Phoenicians played a central role in metal mining and production during the Iron Age in the Levant. The collapse of Late Bronze Age networks in the thirteenth–twelfth centuries bce led to serious disruption of the metals trade in tin, copper, silver, and gold. This set the stage for the rise of iron production at the expense of tin bronze, and for the Phoenician expansion westward to areas rich in mineral resources. The growing importance of silver in the Iron Age economies of the Near East is clearly correlated with the development of technologies that allowed the first attested extraction of silver from sulfidic ores in the Aegean (Laurion) and Iberia (Río Tinto)—another strategic arena in which the Phoenicians held center stage.
Phoenician sites were witness to early adoption of iron technology in the tenth and ninth centuries bce. After appearing sporadically during the twelfth and eleventh centuries bce (Roames 2011; Liebowitz and Folk 1984), ferrous metallurgy intensified in the tenth century across the Levant (Yahalom-Mack and Eliyahu-Behar 2015; Kaufman in press). This period sees a proliferation of iron weapons and tools at the expense of bronze in Phoenician settlements like Horbat Rosh Zayit (Gal and Alexandre 2000: 127–39) and Akhziv (Mazar 2004: fig. 32 and 2001; Dayagi-Mendels 2002).
Even after the spread of iron in the tenth century bce, copper-based alloys persisted as a strategic material class, perhaps because they could be melted down and cast into complex shapes, whereas iron could only be hammered and forged (Snodgrass 1980: 337). Despite the disruptions at the end of the Bronze Age, copper extraction and production continued into the Iron Age at the southern Levantine mines of Timna (Rademakers et al. 2018) and Wadi Faynan (Yahalom-Mack et al. 2014). The bulk of metalworking activities at Khirbet en-Nahas date to the tenth–ninth centuries bce (Smith and Levy 2008). Sherds of Cypro-Phoenician black-on-red juglets discovered at the site hint at Phoenician interests in the metals from Kh. en-Nahas, and the area around the site was identified as a possible source for Phoenician copper, based on provenance analysis of objects from Tell Jatt (Stos-Gale 2006). While the material evidence is not yet conclusive, it is likely that copper from the Wadi Aravah was an important factor in the close political relationship between Judea and Tyre that is remembered in the biblical text (cf. Kafafi 2014).
Copper was also an important product of Cyprus, which at least partially explains Phoenician expansion to the island in the tenth–ninth centuries bce (Vonhoff 2015). An inscription found in Cypriot Carthage documents a copper offering made by the governor of the city, the “servant of Hiram king of the Sidonians.” Esarhaddon’s annals also record tribute from a “king of Carthage [Cypriot],” one of ten kings of Cyprus (Katzenstein 1997: 209–10). Iron was also probably produced on the island, although not at the same scale as copper (Kassianidou 2012).
The Phoenicians, of course, were also front and center in the new silver trade that blossomed during the eighth and seventh centuries bce. Silver began to be used as a sort of proto-currency in the Near East during the Iron Age, a fact attested by both textual and archaeological evidence, including some thirty-four silver hoards recovered from Cisjordan alone (Thompson 2003: 69–87). Demand for this metal was heightened by the collapse of Late Bronze Age exchange networks, the lack of local silver resources, and the rise of the neo-Assyrian empire (Frankenstein 1979). This new demand prompted the rapid development of new mining frontiers in southwestern Spain (Fernández Jurado 2002) and in the Aegean at Laurion (Thompson 2003).
Phoenician Metallurgy in the Central and Western Mediterranean
The past few decades have revolutionized our understanding of Phoenician activities in the western and central Mediterranean, and of the nature and socioeconomic importance of metallurgy in the region. Phoenician involvement in metallurgical activity is divided into three regions: the Iberian Peninsula, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and North Africa.
Whereas production of copper, bronze, tin, and gold had already been mastered by the local indigenous groups at the time of the Phoenician arrival, the Phoenicians brought with them superior pyrotechnologies as well as newly developed techniques for extracting and working iron.
The Iberian Peninsula
The earliest Phoenician presence focused on the Gulf of Cádiz and the silver-rich Iberian Pyrite Belt—in the Sierra Morena Mountains that straddle the Spanish–Portuguese border—supported by a string of warehouses and ports of call along the coast between Málaga and Almería. By the mid-eighth century bce, Phoenician interests had extended north to the Portuguese coast (where rivers offered access to a metal-rich interior), and to the eastern Peninsular seaboard (a region rich in both lead and silver). These diverse Phoenician engagements in the Iberian Peninsula rapidly grew into a complex network geared toward international but also interregional trade, with intensive stockpiling and recycling of scrap metal and litharge (Murillo-Barroso et al. 2016).
The indigenous population of southwestern Iberia already had a sophisticated understanding of bronze metallurgy (Valério et al. 2010), but available evidence suggests they had not mastered silver cupellation before the Phoenicians arrived (Renzi and Rovira 2015; Craddock 2013; Hunt Ortiz 2003; contra Pérez Macías 1996). By the late eighth century bce, silver was being produced in very large quantities throughout the region for shipment to the Near East. Multiple lines of evidence, not least being the great wealth displayed in elite burials from the eighth to seventh centuries (Neville 2007: 156–57, 204n126), suggest that silver extraction and shipment were the result of close cooperation between Phoenicians and Tartessian leaders. Two primary mining centers were found at Río Tinto and Aznalcóllar. Ores from Río Tinto fed furnaces uncovered at the Tartessian city of Huelva, while ores from Aznalcóllar seem to have been transported to the indigenous settlement of San Bartolomé de Almonte, on the plains north of the Guadalquivir River. Here, intensive processing preceded shipment of a lead–silver alloy (regulus) or pure silver to the Phoenician colonies in the Bay of Cádiz (Fernández Jurado 2002). There is also widespread evidence for small-scale silver production throughout the r
egion—a pattern that corresponds more to domestic production, which further complicates the matter of which entity was ultimately controlling the silver trade (Johnston 2013).
In Portugal, Phoenician procurement of metals likewise relied on cooperation with indigenous groups, although as in other regions, a coercive element to these relations cannot be discounted. Examination of bronzes from Portugal suggest that the spread of Phoenician technological practices was selective and gradual, as indigenous Portuguese communities integrated their own well-developed non-ferrous metallurgical traditions into the Phoenician political economy (Valério, Soares, et al. 2015, 2013; Valério, Silva, et al. 2010). Rather than being directly involved in production, Phoenicians at coastal sites like Santa Olaia, Santarém, and Abul may have been receiving and transshipping raw ores or metals produced by indigenous groups farther inland, presumably in exchange for various goods including wine, olive oil, and craftwork such as the curved knives found in the Beira Alta region and at Almada (Arruda 2009: 121).
On the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, the most important Phoenician metallurgical product was lead, which was being produced in the area of El Priorat in Catalonia as early as the late ninth century bce (Rafel et al. 2010). Multiple archaeometric analyses have demonstrated that lead from Catalonia, as well as Linares and Cartagena, was being used in the production of silver at Río Tinto (Murillo-Barroso et al. 2016; Montero-Ruiz et al. 2012). The focus on lead was not exclusive, however: at the site of La Fonteta in Alicante, a wide variety of metallurgical activities are also attested including iron and copper production, but also the extraction of silver from lead–copper alloys, a practice with no precedent that illustrates the resourcefulness of Phoenician smiths facing novel geological circumstances (Renzi and Rovira 2015). Such diversified metallurgical production is reminiscent of the production regimes at contemporary settlements in southern Andalusia and Ibiza, as well as Sardinia (see later), and reminds us that metal was not only a product for export back east but also one for local exchange and consumption.
The complexity of the metal trade in the Iron Age Iberian Peninsula is underscored by evidence of large-scale stockpiling and shipping. Phoenician colonists along the Andalusian coast constructed large warehouses, likely used to keep crude or recyclable metals for export (Aubet 2002; Niemeyer 2002), while a one-ton stockpile of litharge (the lead oxide by-product of cupellation) was discovered in an eighth century bce structure at Castillo de Doña Blanca near Cádiz (Ruiz Mata 1999). Shipwrecks hauling tons of metallic lead, litharge, tin, and copper scrap metal and ingots have also been found along the Mediterranean coasts of Spain and France at Bajo de la Campana, Mazzarón, and Rochelongue (Negueruela Martínez 2014; Polzer 2014; Maluquer de Motes 1966). (For sailing and shipwreck archaeology, see chapter 27, this volume.)
The Tyrrhenian Sea
Almost no archaeological evidence of mining in the Iron Age has survived to the present day in Sardinia, but Phoenician activity focused in the northwest and southwestern parts of the island, which are rich in metals. Moreover, there is widespread evidence of metal-working and exchange in sites dating to the eighth–sixth centuries bce. In the northwest, substantial copper hoards dating to the late ninth and early eighth centuries were discovered at Sant’Imbenia (Dyson and Rowland Jr. 2007: 108) and Alghero (Pinarelli 2004). Excavations at Nuraghe Santa Barbara produced hundreds of fragmentary ceramic molds used for casting copper using the lost-wax technique between the twelfth and eighth centuries bce (Gallin and Tykot 1993: 336). The strategic metal tin was also produced in Sardinia from cassiterite, which has been found in archaeological contexts at the sites of Forraxi Nioi Nuragus and Abini-Teti (Rowland 2001: 54), with metallic tin recovered during salvage excavations at the nuraghic sanctuary of S’Arcu ‘e is Forros (Lo Schiavo 2005: 380). The southwestern Sulcis-Iglesiente region was rich in lead, silver, and iron, and although signs of their exploitation is scarce, the intensity of Phoenician activity in the region during the eighth and seventh centuries strongly suggests that these metal resources were known and extracted at the time (Bernardini 2006). Evidence of iron working on the island is present from the very earliest stages of Phoenician presence on the island—for instance, at Sulcis in the form of iron slags dating to the early eighth century (Bernardini 1990: 149), and later at Tharros (Ingo et al. 1996).
For Sicily, an island poor in metal resources, little is known about the extent to which Phoenicians influenced local metallurgical trends (Albanese Procelli 2008: 464–65). Tuscany/Etruria, in contrast, was rich in copper and iron and clearly played a role in the Iron Age metal trade (Costagliola et al. 2008; Corretti and Benvenuti 2001). Despite the absence of direct Phoenician settlement on the Italian mainland, signs of Phoenician influence are found at Etruscan mining districts such as the Colline Metallifere (Van Dommelen 1998: 79). Not least of these is a transition from predominantly copper to iron production, which is preserved in the massive beach slag heaps at Etrurian Populonia, during the ninth to seventh centuries bce (Chiarantini et al. 2009). Etruscan smiths in the region continued producing about three tons of iron a year from 600 to 100 bce (Crew 1991: 113).
North Africa
The only major metallurgical production center during Phoenician and Punic times in North Africa is at Carthage, where iron and steel made up around 96 percent of the metal produced between ca. 800–400 bce (Kaufman et al. 2016). As a colonial foundation, one of the main economic tasks of Carthage would have been to produce iron for trade in the Phoenician maritime commercial network, particularly for use in the Iberian Peninsula where ferrous metallurgy was unknown before Phoenician contact. The impact of Carthaginian activities would have been even stronger in North Africa itself, where local indigenous cultures (e.g., Amazigh, Numidian, Libyan) had in essence a Neolithic basket of technologies before Phoenician contact, with no known metallurgical technology. The influx of new technologies combined with protracted culture contact changed these local societies profoundly during the North African Iron Age.
The earliest known iron implements and ferrous slags are found—somewhat surprisingly—at the inland site of Althiburos, in late ninth- and eighth-century bce contexts (Sanmartí et al. 2012). At Carthage itself, small amounts of iron slag appear in the eighth–seventh centuries, and by ca. 650 bce a precinct dedicated to ferrous metallurgy and occasional work with copper alloys was established at Bir Massouda over an earlier cemetery (Kaufman et al. 2016; Docter et al. 2006, 2003). By the end of the fifth century, metallurgical activity had been completely transferred to another cemetery on the Byrsa slopes, where it continued until the late third century (Niemeyer 2001; Lancel 1982; Tylecote 1982; Lancel 1979). Other smaller production areas have been excavated dating to various periods.
Metallurgical technology is also commemorated in the tophet stelae of Carthage, as well as in the longest Punic text—the Urbanistic Inscription—which demonstrate the existence of several ranks and kinds of smiths. These include “ironsmith,” “iron forger and smith,” “master smith,” “bronze caster,” “gold vessel specialist,” and “goldsmith” (Kaufman 2014; Heltzer 1983). Although the vast majority of metallurgical detritus is linked to the production of iron and steel, a variety of bronze alloys have also been excavated at Bir Massouda, spanning the colonial foundation of Carthage to its destruction in 146 bce. These include objects of pure copper, tin bronze, arsenical coppers, ternary tin/arsenical bronzes, lead, leaded tin bronzes, and leaded arsenical coppers (Kaufman et al. in press), most of which were probably cast at Carthage.
Indications of small-scale metallurgical activity can be found at sites farther west across the Maghreb, such as at Lixus and Mogador (González-Ruibal 2006: 124; Aubet 2001). Based on historical accounts from the likes of Herodotus, it seems likely that these westernmost Phoenician and Punic settlements were involved in the gold trade emanating from the Sahara or West Africa (Hdt. 4.152; Warmington 1969: 40), although there is little archaeological evidence to support the Classical narratives. We do know th
at Phoenician sailors acquired large quantities of gold (Markoe 1985), which was put to economic, artistic, and even political purposes embodied in the bilingual Pyrgi Tablets (López-Ruiz 2015). Recent archaeometric work has shown western Africa to be a potential source for Punic gold artifacts (Ontalba Salamanca et al. 2006), an encouraging development.
The Phoenician and Punic relationship with metal production and trade spans the tenth through second centuries bce, but the destruction of Carthage may not have meant an end to this tradition. Metallurgical production is found at neo-Punic sites under Roman rule such as Zita in Tripolitania (Kaufman et al. 2015), but these fall beyond the scope of the present survey.
Other Technologies
As the Phoenicians moved westward, they brought with them a distinctly Levantine array of technologies that can be traced back to the Bronze Age Canaanite sphere. These included material culture and practices related to agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, and forestry; to maritime industries like shipbuilding and sailing, the production of salt and purple dye, fishing, and canning; to craftsmanship of stone, metal, wood, ivory, and ceramic objects; and to architecture. Anthropological perspectives on these different technologies—investigating their social significance and organization, or the way technological knowledge was transmitted—have been scarce (Johnston 2013). Several of the most archaeologically prominent technologies and their importance to Phoenician and Punic society are addressed elsewhere in this volume, such as ceramics, minor arts, domestic architecture, and agriculture.
The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean Page 59