Orichalcum, the lost metal of Atlantis, may have been found in a shipwreck off Sicily

MYSTERIOUS metal ingots linked to the mythical civilisation of Atlantis have been recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Sicily.

Archaeologists last month recovered a wealth of ingots of an unusual golden alloy from the wreck sitting in about 3m of water, 300m off the coast of Gela in southern Sicily.

Also recovered from the wreck, which sank some 2600 years ago, were two Corinthian war helmets and containers once used to hold precious, scented oils.

But it is the rough lumps of metal still shining with red and gold hues after two millennia on the sea floor that has excited the archaeological world.

It could be orichalcum.

The mythical lost metal of Atlantis.

But, in 2014, the metal returned to reality with the discovery of the wreck off Sicily. In 2015, 39 roughly-cast lumps of an unusual red-gold metal were recovered from the sea floor.

Divers uncovered another 47 ingots from the mud last month.

SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR

The archaeologists working on recovering the wreck say it went down within sight of safety.

“The ship dates to the end of the sixth century BC,” Sicilian archaeologist Sebastiano Tusa told Seeker.

“It was likely caught in a sudden storm and sunk just when it was about to enter the port.”

This rules out Atlantis. Plato, writing in the 4th Century BC, implies that the legendary city slipped beneath the waves many hundreds — perhaps thousands — of years earlier. Archaeologists believe the ship was exporting the orichalcum from Greece or Asia Minor.

Given its precious cargo, it may not have had an easy voyage.

“The presence of helmets and weapons aboard ships is rather common. They were used against pirate incursions,” Tusa said.

Also recovered was an anchor, remains of amphorae and several smaller containers used for carrying precious oils. The shipwreck, and that of another two nearby, are yet to be fully excavated. Tusa told La Repubblica that protecting the wrecks remains a concern, with looters believed to be exploiting a lack of policing of the archaeologically rich waters.

MYTHICAL METAL

The red-hued orichalcum alloy was long regarded to be a myth mentioned only in passing in Ancient Greek tales by the likes of Hesiod in the 8th Century BC and Plato in the 4th Century BC. One legend states it was invented by the legendary first king of Thebes, Cadmus, and was said to be regarded as being only slightly less precious than gold.

Plato lauded the glistening metal’s properties, and attributed it to Atlantis:

“For because of the greatness of their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, solid as well as fusile, and that which is now only a name and was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than anything except gold.”

He went on to say the metal was used to give the interior of the temple of Poseidon, at the heart of Atlantis, a magical glow.

“The zones of earth were surrounded by stone walls of divers colours, black and white and red, which they sometimes intermingled for the sake of ornament; the outermost wall was coated with brass, the second with tin, and the third, which was the wall of the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum.”

Exactly what it was, and what it was made of, was a matter of speculation.

FROM LEGEND TO REALITY

Turns out, orichalcum may not be as exotic as the ancient tales suggest. Though it was almost certainly mysterious to many of the jewellers who formed it — and sold it.

Studies have shown the metal ingots to be made of about 75-80 per cent copper, 14-20 per cent zinc and a scattering of nickel, lead and iron.

The process of its production was likely to have been a tightly-held secret. Exactly how it was achieved remains a matter of debate.
One explanation that fits the findings is that zinc ore, charcoal and copper could have been reacted in a molten crucible.

Whatever the case, the shiny brass-like alloy was highly regarded as it did not tarnish. It was also durable enough for use in jewellery.

Which is where the shipwreck comes in.

It was found just outside a harbour to the Greek colony city of Ghelas which, in ancient times, was a centre for craftsmen specialising in fine jewellery and ornate artefacts.

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis

Archaeologists excavating the Temple of Isis in Pompeii have discovered the remains of a ritual banquet where dozens of birds were eaten, possibly to placate the goddess after her temple was downsized.

The find shows the importance of birds to worshippers of Isis, an Egyptian cult that had become established in Roman society by the first century A.D., according to a study published on April 27 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 

“The ritual … was likely performed by three priests of Isis in a single day,” possibly to atone for renovations that had made the temple slightly smaller, study first author Chiara Corbino, an archaeologist at Italy’s Institute of Heritage Science, told Live Science in an email. 

Pompeii was a wealthy Roman resort city that was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. It was buried beneath a layer of volcanic ash up to 20 feet (6 meters) thick and has been progressively excavated to provide a snapshot of life in the early Roman Empire. 

Corbino said the renovations seem to have been made after an earthquake damaged the temple in A.D. 62, which meant the banquet took place between that time and the eruption in 79.

The excavations revealed the charred remains of at least eight chickens, a goose, a turtle dove, a pig and two clams; part of the meat would be cooked and eaten by the priests, while the rest would have been set out on the floor as an offering to Isis, she said.

Isis — the Greek name for the “great mother” of the ancient Egyptians, known as Aset or Eset — was often portrayed with bird wings, and some archaeologists think she may have once been a bird deity, like the falcon-headed Egyptian god Horus.

The new finding adds more evidence that birds were central to the Isis cult. “This work confirms that bird sacrifice was an important part of the Isis rituals,” the authors wrote in the study.

Cult of Isis

The Isis cult spread from Egypt to Greece and became part of the Roman world by the first century B.C. 

Sabine Deschler-Erb, a historian and archaeologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland who was not involved in the study, said the mobility of soldiers, administrators, and traders in the Roman Empire promoted the spread of Eastern religions such as the Isis cult. 

The cult rituals were secret and not allowed to be written down, so archaeology is the only way of finding out about them, she said. Until now, in the case of the Isis cult, sacrificial remains had been found only in Greece, Spain, and Germany. 

“The study of Pompeii is the first archaeozoological investigation of an Isis sanctuary in Italy,” she said.

Animal sacrifices

Isabel Köster, a historian at the University of Colorado Boulder who didn’t take part in the study, noted that the finds at Pompeii are similar to the remains of bird sacrifices found at Isis temples in Roman territories, such as the Sanctuary of Isis and Magna Mater in Mainz, Germany. 

However, Jan Bremmer, a historian and professor emeritus at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who wasn’t involved in the study, said the chickens and geese offered at Pompeii suggest Isis was not an important god in Roman worship at the time. “Those usually received more important animals,” like cattle, he said.

Regardless of their species, sacrificial animals would usually be ceremonially killed while appropriate prayers were recited or sung. The meat was often then charred, and part of it was offered to the god; the rest would typically be cooked and eaten by the priests and whoever had paid for the sacrifice.

Erica Rowan, an archaeologist at Royal Holloway, University of London who wasn’t involved with the study, noted both similarities and differences between the bird offerings at Pompeii and those made to Isis elsewhere. For example, the animal sacrifices to Isis at Mainz and at Delos in Greece were almost completely consumed by fire, rather than leaving significant remains; while the remains of cattle and fish were found with those of birds at the Baelo Claudia site in Spain.

“They are similar enough to show that there was clearly communication between the various congregations or cult members,” she said.