Imaging technology has revealed that ancient swords smuggled into the UK recently have been altered by modern-day forgers, who replaced many of the original iron blades with bronze ones. What’s more, many similar swords in museums worldwide may also be tainted by modern forgery.
The swords in question come from what is now Iran and date to an important moment in history: the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age. As the names suggest, this marked a technological shift as iron became the metal of choice for weapons and other tools.
at Cranfield University in the UK and her colleagues analysed eight swords inside a high-energy particle accelerator, using neutron imaging to produce 3D representations of the artefacts that can be digitally sliced and examined from any direction to explore their internal structure. This revealed that many of the swords – which currently have bronze handles and bronze blades – originally had iron blades. Rodzinka and her colleagues could demonstrate this because, in most cases, they could see the iron base of the original sword blade – called the tang – still embedded in the bronze handle. The neutron imaging also highlighted the hydrogen-rich glue used in the modifications.
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“This means that the original swords were bimetallic, with a tanged iron blade and a bronze hilt cast onto it,” says Rodzinka. “Some might call them iron swords with bronze hilts.”
The “new” bronze blades that have been fitted to the weapons were probably also ancient artefacts themselves. The forgers may have chosen to add them to the swords to increase their market value if the original iron blades were corroded or otherwise damaged. Three of the swords actually seem to have had bronze blades originally, which the forgers then replaced with different bronze blades – the researchers speculate that this may be because the original bronze blades were damaged or broken.
Modern tampering complicates efforts to understand how innovations spread among ancient metalworkers who created the bimetallic weapons. “Studying the metalwork of the region is essential to our understanding of how metallurgical technologies spread across Eurasia,” says study co-author also at Cranfield University.
Iron swords with bronze hilts weren’t unusual in the early Iron Age, with other examples originating from central Europe, says at the University of Genoa in Italy. She agrees that “many Iron Age Iranian swords in various museums were likely modified by modern forgery”.
But , a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists who lives in the UK, questions whether it was necessary to use neutron imaging to reach these conclusions. “I don’t think it makes any sense to recommend [the technique for] objects that an experienced archaeological metals specialist can look at and tell you are cobbled-together fakes,” she says.
The modified Iron Age swords will be returned to Iran. But first, members of the public may get to see them exhibited at the British Museum in London starting in January 2025, as part of a temporary display about “heritage crime, looting and trafficking”, says Rodzinka.
Journal of Archaeological Science
