Kiel, Germany—according to Greek reporterMatthias Christian Hals of Kiel University and colleagues compared two Iron Age axes – one found in a burial mound in Kazakhstan and the other discovered among a collection of tools in northern Germany. Radiocarbon dating revealed that this device from Kazakhstan was made between 357 and 164 BCThat makes it several hundred years younger than the burial in which it was found. It may have been left on the site during the construction of a neighboring burial mound, Huels said. The ax was made from two types of iron. Soft metal was used near the handle, while the cutting edges were made of harder, carbon-rich iron. He said that heat treatment was used to strengthen the blade of the axe. Chemical analysis of the slag at the site showed that the iron was efficiently refined. Meanwhile, Germany’s Hogersdorf X was dated to between 340 and 53 BC This ax was made of soft, phosphorus-rich iron that may have been taken from marsh iron ore available near local rivers and wetlands. It appears that the smelting process used to make this tool is less efficient than the smelting process used to make the axes from Kazakhstan. Huels suggests that both axes reflect different levels of metalworking skills that were probably shaped by available resources. Read the original scholarly article about this research radiocarbon. To read about other ancient cemeteries in Kazakhstan, visit “Iron Age teenagers“
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