Spanish steel is older than thought, rock carvings suggest

German researchers have shown that steel tools were being used in the Iberian peninsula as long ago as 900 BC.

The team, led by University of Freiburg archaeologist Ralph Araque Gonzalez, were interested in ancient carvings on very hard rock similar to quartzite. Considering that such extremely hard rocks require robust tools for carving, bronze and lithic tools were be discarded. An iron chisel from the Final Bronze Age site of Rocha do Vigio (Portugal) was studied with metallography and exposed heterogeneous, surprisingly high-carbon steel.

The team hypothesise that the production of carbon steel as well as its hardening were already known at the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in Iberia. Hence, only the access to iron technology allowed for the making of stelae from the lithotypes that were frequently used in the Zújar basin around the municipality of Capilla.

Given the dates in question, the work indicates that steel was being used in western Europe before external colonisation thus pointing to independent discovery of steelmaking techniques in Spain.

Ancient steel has also been found in Turkey and China, while in Egypt Tutankhamun had a steel dagger in his tomb that was found to have originated from a meteor.

The paper can be found here.