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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Production et circulation de l’or à l'âge du Fer en Europe occidentale et centrale. Premier aperçu des résultats du programme Celtic Gold

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description

Through the successive Franco-German projects “West Hallstatt Gold” and “Celtic Gold”, it has been possible to study the production of precious metals during the Iron Age on the scale of Western and Central Europe. The inventory of these artefacts and their archaeological context is now almost complete, and a substantial part of them has been visually studied and analysed. Thanks to renewed technological and archaeometric approaches, we propose here a panorama of the major economic, technological and stylistic trends, making it possible to identify continuities and breaks in supply networks, goldsmithing techniques, uses and burial contexts of gold.Three main types of gold stocks have been identified (native, purified or alloyed gold), whose use seems to follow one another more or less in time. Although most of the techniques used in Iron Age goldsmithing were already mastered during the Bronze Age, several innovations have been identified around the 6th century BC. It is also during this period that new stylistic features are discernible in gold productions, which are the main witnesses of a real artistic renewal between the end of the 6th and the 3rd century BC. Whereas gold was mainly buried in privileged burials until the 4th century BC, this material is almost exclusively buried in hoard from this period onwards, especially in sanctuary.Although discordant with the major classical chronological divisions, the period from the end of the 5th to the beginning of the 3rd century BC seems to correspond to an important transitional moment in terms of goldsmith’s production, but which is reflected in other archaeological data.