That’s the story so far. When troops invaded Europe around 200 BC. C. and 14 d. C, they found a steelless continent. Iron has been worked in many areas, yes; but it was a primitive iron, weak and full of problems.

Until now. Because history has changed.

The mystery of carved stones. Oddly enough, the date changed almost by accident. In recent years, the team led by Ralph Araque Gonzalez of the University of Freiburg has worked to discover what kinds of tools were used to make stone stelae on the Iberian Peninsula.

In the Late Bronze Age (1200 to 800 BC) and the Early Iron Age (800 to 600 BC), the Iberian Peninsula was filled with intricate stone carvings containing images of anthropomorphic figures, animals or weapons.

experimental archeology. The problem is that researching the tools used to carve the stones is quite complex. In fact, Araque Gonzalez is an experimental archaeologist: that is, he tries to fill the gaps in material history by reconstructing historical and technological situations.

In this case, they petrologically analyzed the composition of the standing stones (many of which were discovered at the Sierra de la Moraleja in Badajoz) to discover that they were extremely hard stones. very hard. very tough. They tried bronze, quartzite and iron tools, but the results were not good.

Rocha do Vigio chisel. Until I found a chisel made of 30% ferrite and 70% perlite. A chisel that, when reproduced, makes it possible to make identical writings on very similar rock.

The Rocha do Vigio site in Portugal’s Alentejo left no room for doubt. Rather, the site showed that “ferrous metallurgy, including steelmaking and annealing, were likely local developments of small central communities in Iberia and were not due to the influence of subsequent colonization processes”.

In other words, everything indicates that Iberian peoples used steel (and tempering) 700 years before the arrival of Roman troops. Rome 0 – Badajoz 1

on Xataka | Paradoxically, almost everything that happens in Game of Thrones has a scientific explanation.

Image | Badajoz Archaeological Museum