The Earliest Lead Object in the Levant

In the deepest section of a large complex cave in the northern Negev desert, Israel, a bi-conical lead object was found logged onto a wooden shaft. Associated material remains and radiocarbon dating of the shaft place the object within the Late Chalcolithic period, at the late 5th millennium BCE. Ba...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-12, Vol.10 (12), p.e0142948-e0142948
Main Authors: Yahalom-Mack, Naama, Langgut, Dafna, Dvir, Omri, Tirosh, Ofir, Eliyahu-Behar, Adi, Erel, Yigal, Langford, Boaz, Frumkin, Amos, Ullman, Mika, Davidovich, Uri
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeological dating
Archaeology
Carbonate minerals
Copper
Deserts
Earth science
Editors
Environment
Fossils
Galena
History, Ancient
Humans
Israel
Lead
Lead - history
Lead isotopes
Lead ores
Metallurgy
Metallurgy - history
Minerals
Museums
Ores
Radiocarbon dating
Radiometric Dating
Society
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Summary:In the deepest section of a large complex cave in the northern Negev desert, Israel, a bi-conical lead object was found logged onto a wooden shaft. Associated material remains and radiocarbon dating of the shaft place the object within the Late Chalcolithic period, at the late 5th millennium BCE. Based on chemical and lead isotope analysis, we show that this unique object was made of almost pure metallic lead, likely smelted from lead ores originating in the Taurus range in Anatolia. Either the finished object, or the raw material, was brought to the southern Levant, adding another major component to the already-rich Late Chalcolithic metallurgical corpus known to-date. The paper also discusses possible uses of the object, suggesting that it may have been used as a spindle whorl, at least towards its deposition.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0142948