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B
ronze Age Spain was a dicey place to buy jewelry. At this time, trade networks
that spanned all of Europe carried valuable raw materials across the continent.
One of these materials was amber, or fossilized tree resin, which had long been
prized for its color and rarity, and was used in high-status ornaments for both
the living and the dead. Amber from the Baltic, and later Sicily, as well as ivory from Asia and
Africa, jade from the Alps, and the mineral cinnabar became ever more prized commodities.
At the continent’s western edge, Spain was connected to long-distance trade routes, and thus
to a plentiful supply of these luxury items, by virtue of its access to the Atlantic Ocean and
Mediterranean Sea, says archaeologist Carlos Odriozola of the University of Seville. It was also,
therefore, a prime target for unscrupulous traders looking for an easy mark.
Odriozola has analyzed grave goods from burials in two different locations—one an
artificial cave called La Molina in Seville, and the other the Cove of the Giant near Barcelona.
He has found that, alongside such precious items as ivory, there were also beads that, at first
glance, appear to be amber, but which actually turn out to be shells and seeds covered in pine
resin to make them resemble the gemstone. “This is the first time in Western Europe we have
evidence of imitation and fakery,” says Odriozola. He wonders whether these were
examples of traders deliberately deceiving consumers, whether community
leaders didn’t have the resources to
purchase the real thing, or whether
a shortage of amber led to the
development of techniques for
creating faux amber. “The quest
for power and wealth are consistent
behaviors for humankind across time,
and it’s easy to imagine ancient middlemen
cheating people to acquire them,” Odriozola
says. “If they fooled us, a team of well-trained
archaeologists, I’m sure they fooled their
buyers in the past, too.”
WHAT IS IT
Beads
CULTURE
Bronze Age
DAT E
3000–1400 b.c.
MATERIAL
Mollusk shells, seeds,
pine resin, cinnabar
FOUND
DIMENSIONS
Ranging from 0.37 to
0.53 inches diameter
ARCHAEOLOGY • July/August 2019
ARTIFACTBY JARRETT A. LOBELL
Cove of the Giant
La Molina Cave
SPAIN