most rewarding groups of iron objects analysed by Maria Kostoglou
comes from Zone. Knives, scissors, spearheads and other weapons,
axes, a saw, a plough share, strigils, keys, rings, bells, and other items
were found in and around the sixth-centurybctemple of Apollo on the
eastern periphery of Zone. A set of iron spits and an elongated iron bar,
of the type used as currency in continental Europe, were also among
these presumed votives.^93
Iron knives, spits, spearheads and arrowheads represent the common-
est items at Zone. In thefifth centurybcthere was a wider range of
knives and agricultural tools, such as billhooks and pruning hooks.
Nevertheless, the scale of production appears to have been intended for
local use. The concentration of industrial waste in the south-eastern part
of the fortified area of the city probably indicates the location of smithing
workshops. Kostoglou has emphasized the wide range of evidence that
indicates a strong indigenous imprint at Zone—not only in the style of
handmade pottery and funerary rites (dolmen and tumulus burial), but
also in the selection of associated objects; the relative absence of certain
characteristic classical Greek items, such as strigils, and the correspond-
ing presence of distinctive types of iron spits and rings.^94
Analysis of smelting and smithing slag, as well as artefacts, shows that
a manganese-rich source of iron was used to manufacture tools, arrow-
heads, and spits, but copper-rich iron pyrites, probably from a nearby
source at Kirke, is also identifiable. The usual method of producing iron
objects in classical antiquity involved smelting the ores into a‘bloom’,or
bar, which could then be forged into an appropriate shape, a process that
allowed modification of the metal’s properties by carburizing the bar
during the smithing process, thereby making it into a harder and more
efficient blade. This is particularly true of the long, thin spit-shaped bars
that were used to produce long blades, particularly swords. The close
physical association of industrial waste and indigenous types of hand-
made pottery strongly indicates that indigenous miners and smiths were
involved in these operations.^95
The picture at Abdera was very different. Here there was no evidence
of iron objects having been deposited in burials and there were few iron
tools in the classical settlement. Furnace debris from iron and bronze
production suggests that some of the pyrotechnic experience was shared
(^93) Kostoglou 2008, 35–8, table 2 andfig. 14 (spits and currency bar [= MES21 A—K351],
0.26 x 0.045 x 0.017 m, 615.6 g: table 7b, p.104); on obeloi, or currency bars: Strøm 1992 and
P. Haarer, (2001),Obeloi and iron in Ancient Greece,unpublished PhD thesis, Department
of Archaeology, Oxford.
(^94) Kostoglou 2008, 42–3. (^95) Kostoglou 2008, 41–3, 57–66.
178 Thelongue duréein the north Aegean