Technical and analytical issues concerning some phoenician and orientalizing bronzes from the Iberian Peninsula

The production of ritual, ornamental, or utilitarian bronzes during the so-called Orientalizing period of the Iberian Peninsula remains one of the most frequently discussed handcrafts, new findings are continuously in progress and even older dates are proposed thus calling for continuous scientific discussion. This situation shows only a complex moment in History and a socio-economic juncture that favoured trade and interaction between heterogeneous social groups. But still we are lacking technical, analytical or iconographic evidence as to determinatively answer certain questions regarding the provenance or attribution of certain workshops. The absence of a context for many of the old discoveries cannot continue being an excuse. Not either the wide chronological margin in which we are operating, from the pre-colonial Late Bronze Age III1 to the time of the Iberian bronze industry, which is well-defined and characterised. Really, there are three centuries of productive development during which we are witnessing the geo-economic nucleus shift from the “Strait circle” to the geographical scope of Carthage and, above all, the emergence of political and territorial entities that constitute the map of the Iberian political organization as described by Classical authors.