Israeli Underwater Excavations Reveal Earliest Hoard of Iron Blooms From 600 B.C.E. [24:05]

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to Let the Stone Speak. I'm Brent Noctagal, the host of the program. Nothing captures attention like shipwrecks, ancient shipwrecks, and the cargos that they once held. And this is what we're going to talk about on today's program. The cargo itself isn't gold, isn't silver, it is iron. And specifically, the discovery off the coast of Israel of iron blooms dating back some 2,600 years. This is the time period of the biblical king Josiah ruling from Judah and a period about 100 years or so after the northern tribes of Israel had been deported from the area. And you have a period of Assyrian, then Egyptian, then Babylonian domination.

And somewhere in that time period, there is a shipwreck just off the coast at the harbor of Dor. And now they're finding for the first time a collection of iron blooms from this early period. So that's what we're going to have for you today: a doc, an interview with Dr. Tsilla Echel from the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the Hifer University, not too far from the location these were found. Don't forget, if you like our content, like this podcast, please like and subscribe to our channel. You can also receive our print magazine. It's called Let the Stone Speak as well. It comes out six times per year. Today is actually print day for the next volume that should be shipped to the printer and then shipped out to you if you're already a subscriber. It's absolutely free. All you need to do is go to our website, armstronginstitute.org, sign up for it there, or you can write an email to letters@armstronginstitute.org and put your name and address, and we'll make sure you get on the mailing list.

But here is the interview with Professor Sila Echel. Dr. Tilla Echel, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

I'm a professor now.

You are? Oh, you're a professor now. Oh, congratulations!

So, University of Hifer, Zinman Institute of Archaeology. Yeah. Well, congratulations. So, Professor Tilla, thank you for joining our show. An amazing new discovery or a new publication following your work of a shipwreck cargo that was found off the coast of Dor that we'd like to talk about with you. You're the lead author in this article. It's in Heritage Science: "Earliest Iron Blooms Discovered off the Carmel Coast. Revised Mediterranean Trade in Raw Metal Circa 600 BCE." This is brand new information and it kind of is changing our understanding of how metal was or how iron was traded or shipped in the ancient world. Can you please give us some of the details of where it was discovered? And then what sets this medium of metal transfer, I guess, as opposed to like an ingot or something like that?

So, these iron blooms were discovered in the Do Lagoon, which is just offshore of Toro, and it's a quite large but shallow lagoon. It was discovered and unearthed in a maritime excavation headed by Professor Safi Sulando and Professor Tom Levy from San Diego. And they brought to me one of these blooms. They said, "We found a heavy rock. What is it?" They have a few. [laughter] And so we thought maybe it's lead because it was very, very heavy, but we quite quickly understood that it's made of iron. So can you explain what the difference is between a bloom and how a bloom takes place in the process of taking the iron ore and then producing something else with it?

So, the something else would be a billet. Okay, we would call it a billet. And the billet is like the equivalent of an ingot or others. The reason we don't have ingots in iron is because iron was not reaching its molten state while produced. And remind me later, I'll send you a nice video on YouTube, a 10-minute video from a group from Poland who produced iron blooms. You can see the process and you can see how the bloom comes out in a solid state. Mhm. And while the slag is being streamed out. So the slag is molten, but the iron remains solid. And that's why we don't have ingots; we have blooms. The blooms come out of the furnace as a sponge, meaning they're solid, but they have a lot of pores because they never consolidated as a liquid. Mhm.

And so what the metalsmith would do is he would take the bloom and he would start working on it with big hammers and heavy hammers and consolidate the bloom into a billet. And so we usually would expect to find in the cargo of ships, and this is a common find in the cargo of ships, iron billets. And these, so a billet, a billet is the impurities have been removed via the beating process rather than the heavy smelting process.

Exactly. Heavy, and the bloom comes out heavy and it comes out dirty and comes out full of slag and pores, and the billet is much more consolidated and clean, and this can be then shipped or traded to the metalsmith who would produce artifacts from it.

Okay. The basic reason that blooms were consolidated into billets is because it was actually taking advantage of the energy. The bloom comes out very, very hot, and you can use this energy to consolidate it rather easily. So typically, as we understood it before, this whole process of taking the iron ore, you get the bloom, and then the billet is produced in one heating or one episode. But the fact that you find blooms being transported shows that sometimes this process was split up between point A and point B.

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Why is that important? Yeah, there are quite a few studies on iron smithies in the southern ant and other major Canaanite cities, and I don't know if Canaanite would be the right word because we're talking about the Iron Age, but major cities, major urban centers. Mhm. And what we see is that fragments of blooms were found in these smithies. And this brought up a debate and a long-going argument. Were these smithies or were these actually iron-producing furnaces? So a smithy is a place where there's an iron smith. He receives a billet and he works it to make an artifact. But if we find blooms, then the archaeologists assume that the whole production process took place in one site. The minute we show that blooms were traded, this changes our understanding about these sites. They were smithies. They received blooms instead of receiving billets, and that's why we find the blooms in the site. So it changes the whole concept about smithies in the Iron Age and those other sites where you're talking about this debate, these other urban centers. How early on are you finding these? Would these date? Because the discovery that you've... we'll talk about the dating. This dates to the late 7th, looks like late 7th century BCE, and this prior evidence of potential separation of this process, what do they date earlier? They're the Iron 2A, Iron H2A, mid-10th century, something like that, so they're earlier, and it doesn't imply necessarily that it happened, but it opened the option, the possibility to such an interpretation. Well, but now we know that it did happen at least 300 years after that based on the facts.

So what would benefit the smith, the person transporting this, to leave it in the bloom stage rather than taking it further to the billet?

The thing is that when we find billets in underwater excavations, they're all corroded, and when we found the bloom, it's still preserved in its amazing state, just as if it was produced yesterday. The iron is [clears throat] totally uncorroded. It's very well preserved. So when we see this preservation state, we understand that they had some benefit from wasting energy and not consolidating their blooms, but they received something that can be transported without corrosion, especially overseas. So, you can imagine, I guess, an iron distributor sending billets, getting to the destination for whatever reason. It took a long time. Maybe it was stored for a while, maybe it did sink, and it's all corroded, and the purchaser is like, "Hey, you gave me bad stuff." This is going to make sure that during transportation, the item itself would stay intact, the iron. It might be transportation. It might be something that is known to that needs to... it will take time until it will be used. So you need patience until it will be worked. It's not work tomorrow morning. And so anything that can avoid corrosion is worth the effort or the waste of energy.

So as far as the cargo goes, how many of these were found? And how does it... nine like so nine balls or blooms? I know they're blooms, but I'm sure what shape are they for people?

Oh, they're like a more or less square. Okay. How much do they weigh?

I didn't weigh them actually, but they're quite heavy. Okay. I think they're about this size. Okay. And I would estimate like 20 kilos one. They're quite heavy when you pick it up, and it's like, okay, they're quite heavy, but they're also covered with already patina from the sea. So it's not only the bloom; it has quite a thick layer around it.

And so what you did I suppose is get one of these delivered to you from the marine archaeologists and then you crack it open in some fashion and sample it. Um, is there any information from this process that you can garner from where it came from or um or even the dating? How would you arrive at that some of that information?

So, we took it to the research with colleagues in the technon from the metal institution, Dr. and Dr. Andre, and they had a saw in my lab but it wasn't big enough for this bloom. So they have larger equipment and they helped us cut through this bloom. And then we were surprised to find in the center of the bloom, in one of the pores, a small charred piece of wood. And so this was very nice because first of all we could send it to Professor Daphna Langot who did a botanic analysis and identified the type of tree. It's a young branch of some kind but also we took it for carbon-14 dating along with other seeds that were found nearby and this ship.

Yes. And this first of all you might ask, so who says that it's one shipwreck? Maybe the blooms and the ceramics near it are from different sources, but here we have a piece of charcoal from within the bloom. You can't debate that. So it's very nice. We're very happy to find that. And this gave us some kind of a chronological horizon because it falls on the plateau. So we have like between 800 and mid-6th century BC and then we had to do a little bit of mathematics with short-lived seeds and things like that. This was done by Zach Dunes from USBC. And another thing that gave us the chronological frame are the basket handles that were found which are very indicative of a specific time period, the late 7th early or the sixth century. So together, all this could give us some kind of chronological frame.

And um, are you able to tell where iron is sourced? I guess that the big question then to me is you've got a shipwreck off the main port for what would be considered this territory that was Israel. I know at this point Israel had already disappeared or had been removed. But you have a shipwreck here by the port. Do we have any sense of whether it is leaving or coming?

So it's a good question and I know that the photographic analysis is due soon on the basket handles. So maybe we will know more. Um, it's a big thing because Dor is a big port but not in the seventh century and we don't know a lot about Dor in this period. It's the period in which the Assyrians already left the region and probably the Egyptians have some kind of impact or rule on the region just before the Babylonians destroy the whole area. So something is happening there and we see a lot of things coming in under Egyptian rule. Mhm.

First of all, these basket handles, they're more common under Egyptian and later Persian periods. We see a trade. This I can tell you from other research I've done on other metals. We see for the first time silver coming in from the gene and we see also ceramics coming from the gin. Things are happening in the East Greek, what we call East Greek ceramics. Things are happening under Egyptian rule and so it is possible that the iron is also coming in together with this. This short Egyptian period is often gone unnoticed and we're not aware that it's quite a big power, you know, Egypt, and they might have the resources and the ability to mobilize these iron blooms.

Yeah, I'm just the first thing I did when I read through the paper here this morning was just see how it matched up with what was found in area X in Megiddo and published last year by Finkelstein and Adams that they believe that they found evidence of in area X of this late 7th century Egyptian presence based on Egyptian pottery they found there. They also found pottery from the Aian they found there. They even found, as they published, a little piece of iron from a defensive clothing for, I forget what you would call that. And I was thinking, well, this cargo matches at least it seems at this point very similar dating to when they have an Egyptian presence at Megiddo which is a relatively short distance from the port at Dor. Um, so perhaps this is one in the same kind of concept. Um, what are your thoughts?

We have it in many other sites by the way. We have it in Ash and if you heard of Kashavao with a lot of East Greek pottery and Egyptian and maybe there were Egyptian mercenaries and all that. So if you go into the details, there's quite a lot of evidence from this very short period.

So, in terms of biblical history, um, there is an episode related to King Josiah which would overlap this period where he is venturing to the north and he's trying to cut off the Egyptian army as they're moving through to help the Assyrians against the Babylonians. Um, and so this kind of fits, you know, you're in this space of what we would call kind of a no man's land where the empire that is big is kind of gobbling up the territory of northern Israel for a certain time period and it hasn't been examined or at least archaeologically we just don't have that much information but it seems like this is really coming to light.

We also don't have the precise date of when this happened and we don't know how long it was. It might have been a period of 20 years. It might have been 30 years, 40 years. We don't really know. Mh. But we have, but it's a period in which a lot of evidence is there because something very different is happening. So it's very noticeable.

So, as far as like, um, just to help us kind of understand whether it was leaving, I guess are there iron reserves that were active or iron ore active around the southern Levant that could have been a source of this?

So, there's one, the biggest iron ore known is in Aun in Jordan. One of my colleagues, Professor Dia Ala, has been dedicating her research in the past 20 years looking for additional iron resources. And um, I don't know if there's any specific ores that could be identified, but what she did is she built her own iron furnace and took ore from different places and tried to produce iron. Some of it was very successful. And then the problem is that now you have to provenance the ore and compare it to the artifacts which is not so simple. She has been using chemical and osmium analysis isotopes to try to connect between the ore and the artifacts. There is quite a lot of overlap. So it's not so easy to distinguish between them but there probably may have been additional ores. Iron is quite an abundant metal in the earth's crust.

And so one other thing we haven't mentioned is what would have these been used for? I mean if they're going to all this effort to ship iron, um, what type of manufacturer of things would be used around the late 7th century for iron?

So we find knives, we find agricultural tools like a plow I saw not long ago from, I think, the Hellenistic period or Persian Hellenistic from Enhor, a plow that looks like a modern one -- not modern, you know, modern like 100 years ago -- it's what people would still be using: axes, swords. Um, anything that used to be produced from copper and bronze is now being produced from iron. Amazing.

Okay. Well, is there anything else you think we should cover before we wrap this up? Thank you so much for doing a very quick interview. You had very short time awareness [laughter] before and I pushed you to do it today and I understand Israel's in a continuous situation that is very difficult, and life kind of you do your best to keep moving. Um, but there is kind of a standstill with a lot of other things. You said you were not able to go to university for some time. Um, yeah, there's no shelter near my lab. So, the whole building is not allowed to come unfortunately. But it's things like that that keep us going. I'm happy to give an interview. I'm happy to do research. It makes things easier for me than just watching the news and taking care of the kids and [laughter] absolutely keeps the mind busy. Exactly. Exactly.

So, is there anything else that I've missed that it's important to cover? You think we're good?

No, I think we're good. I think we're good and I hope you enjoy the find and learn a bit more about the iron production process which is very unique and special and so different from other metals. The whole question of the transition from bronze to iron is a very interesting question. If iron is so abundant, why did it take people so much time to use iron? And it's probably because of its very unique production process which was very different from anything people knew before and so it took time to get a hang on things.

Well, I do think that your scientific paper is actually quite easy to read, I think. Um, oh, thank you. Yeah, I do think it's easier than a lot of others. Uh, so I [laughter] I'm going to leave it in the show notes. People can access that. It's open access to anybody. Um, and I definitely think if people are interested in this biblical period, late biblical period, metalworking and how iron was used and transported and going through this process of iron specifically, it does break it down. Got some good graphics in there as well to help us. So, thank you very much. Well done. We look forward to what you're working on next.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure speaking to you.

hank you very much for watching the program today. If you liked the content, please go ahead and subscribe to our channel. And also don't forget about our 40-page color biblical archaeology magazine, Let the Stone Speak. It's available for you for free. Simply go to our website, armstronginstitute.org, and you'll see a place on the front page to sign up. Or you can write an email to letters@armstronginstitute.org, put your name and address. We'll make sure you are signed up for our magazine.

Also, check out the show notes of today's program below. In it, you'll have the paper that we were talking about and you'll also have the video that she mentioned going through the process of iron smelting. Thank you very much.

What is this BCE? Is it dated from the birth of the baby Jesus? Why the reluctance to base dates from the birth of baby Jesus? BC and AD are universally recognized and many non Christian organizations and individuals use them. Might be a good article but I stop when I see BCE.

Oh look, another nick.

What is this BCE?

Easy to understand: Before CHRISTIAN era. And CE: CHRISTIAN ERA. Spread the word! Just put it in all of the writings going forward.

“What is this BCE?”

It used to be “BC”: Before Christ.

Woke hated the “Christ” part and changed it to “BCE”: Before Current Era.

There’s a TV ad for gold by (I think) Dr. Phil. The first few times I heard it, he said “BCE”, and I cringed. Apparently, others did, too, and complained. Now they’ve edited out the “E”; it’s just chopped off. You don’t notice the editing unless you noticed what he used to say.

BCE - Before Christ Emmanuel.

CD - Christ Emergent

An iron bloom is defined as a spongy, porous mass of metallic iron mixed with unreacted ore, slag, and charcoal residue produced during the smelting of iron ore in a bloomery furnace. Because the furnace operates at temperatures below iron's melting point (approx. 1,100–1,200 °C), the iron never fully liquefies; instead, fine iron particles sinter together at the bottom of the furnace to form this solid, impure lump often referred to as sponge iron.

To transform a raw iron bloom into usable wrought iron, the material must undergo consolidation, a process involving repeated heating and heavy hammering. This working step serves two critical functions: it drives out the molten slag trapped within the porous structure and welds the iron particles into a solid, homogeneous, and workable metal bar.

Key characteristics of iron blooms include:

Composition: A mixture of fine iron particles, unreacted iron oxide, slag, and charcoal residue.

Production Method: Created via direct reduction in a bloomery, an ancient furnace type that predates the blast furnace.

Physical State: A solid, spongy mass that requires mechanical forging to become dense enough for use.

Historical Role: Served as the primary intermediate product for ironmaking during the Iron Age and medieval periods before being largely superseded by pig iron production.