Lost-wax casting: A widespread technique to produce copper alloy adornments in Atlantic Europe since the mid-second millennium BC

Abstract

Lost-wax casting is a metalworking technique that has long been regarded as an innovation imported from the eastern Mediterranean and only widely used in Western Europe since the Late Bronze Age. We now have evidence that this technique was in fact largely in use from the Middle Bronze Age onwards for the production of copper alloy adornments in the Atlantic area. Along with palstaves, these objects are the most abundant in Atlantic hoards from the 15th to the 13th centuries BC. Thanks to detailed morphological and technological study, combined with an experimental approach and analysis of their elemental composition, we can propose new chaînes opératoires for the manufacture of massive annular bracelets with geometric decoration.