LAUSR

Abstract Recent discovery and analysis of a series of iron production and manufacture sites and installations in the southern Levant opened the door for a variety of important studies concerning iron metallurgy in the region. However, the provenance of raw materials used to produce iron artifacts in the majority of these sites still eludes us. Based on new analytical data the present study suggests that the source of iron worked in the 9th century BCE iron smithy excavated at Tel Beth-Shemesh is local and comprises iron oxide concretions that are abundant at a few locations in the close vicinity of the site, and could have been easily collected for processing. This suggestion further emphasizes the localized and idiosyncratic character of the Iron Age sociotechnic systems of iron metallurgy which conspicuously differed from the complex international system of copper and tin trade that characterized the bronze industry of the 2nd millennium BCE in the region.