A new imaging method has uncovered modern alterations on Iron Age Iranian bronze swords, showing they were tampered with to boost their value in the illicit antiquities market. This discovery, using neutron tomography, highlights the challenge of detecting forgeries in ancient metalworking artifacts, essential for understanding early metallurgical innovation. Credit: Cranfield University Modern tampering on Iron Age Iranian swords was revealed using neutron tomography, complicating efforts to study ancient metalworking techniques. For the first time, an imaging technique has been applied to study Iron Age bronze swords from Iran, uncovering significant modern modifications that prove the weapons that the weapons...