500 Iron Age iron bars found in Austria reveal a 1-tonne cargo transported 2,000 years ago

PC: Cambridge University Press Archaeologists have identified at least 500 forged iron bars recovered from the Danube in Upper Austria as the largest known assemblage of Iron Age iron in Europe. The discovery was made in 2019 during gravel extraction at Deinham, when workers found double-pointed iron objects in material taken from beneath the river’s water level. According to a research article published by Cambridge University Press titled ‘A sunken ship cargo of 500 bipyramidal bars? Implications for La Tène period iron production and trade along the Danube’, states that radiocarbon dating of three bars places the assemblage in the Late Iron Age, with dates falling between the fourth and first centuries BC.How the 500 iron bars were discovered at DeinhamWorkers at a gravel extraction site in Deinham identified at least 500 iron bars after discovering numerous double-pointed objects in 2019. The material had been removed from beneath the Danube’s water level, which disturbed and destroyed the original archaeological context. The finds were brought to the attention of the Federal Monuments Office, which was followed by the hand collection of additional pieces from the gravel heaps....