# Silver Isotopes in Silver Suggest Phoenician Innovation in Metal Production
## 5 Discussion and Conclusions  
The results support a long-held assumption that native silver was rare in antiquity (e.g., [5,55,56]) and that the source of silver throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages was from hypogene ores, rather than supergene ones where native silver primarily resides ([54], p. 348). As previously mentioned, the Phoenicians brought silver to the Levant from Anatolia and Sardinia in the mid-10 th century BCE and from Iberia during the 9 th and 8 th centuries BCE [6,31]. One of the yet unresolved questions regarding the Phoenician exploitation of metal resources is to what extent were they innovative? Did they bring about new production methods that enabled the exploitation of larger silver quantities, or were they merely fine sea traders and navigators who were able to acquire cheap silver in the West and mobilize it across the Mediterranean? As mentioned above, metal ores cannot always be dated based on the archaeological evidence on-site because recent mining often eliminated the remnants of ancient mining activities. Indeed, archaeology and LIA, insofar, provide limited knowledge regarding Phoenician silver production methods in Anatolia  
Figure 5: Ag isotopic composition of sealed and unsealed silver. The results are marked according to time periods: Squares—Middle/Late Bronze Age transition; Circles—Iron Age IIA–B (Phoenician); Rhombuses—Iron Age IIC. Color indicates sealed silver. and Sardinia. Regarding Anatolia, the quantities of Anatolian silver brought to the Southern Levant by the Phoenicians are by far much larger than in earlier periods; however, ores in Western Anatolia and in the Taurus Mountains were known to be major sources of silver since the 3 rd millennium BCE, predating the Phoenician interest there (e.g., [57; 58; 59; 60]). As for Sardinia, there is no clear evidence that silver was exploited in antiquity, and the activity in the mines was never dated [61; 62; 63]. In Iberia, in contrast to the above, silver production is unanimously considered a Phoenician innovation. Based on numerous finds in silver production sites, it was concluded that from \(\sim\)800 BCE, silver was extracted from the abundant Pb-deficient antiferevations jarositic ores in the Iberian Pyritic Belt by Phoenicians, via the deliberate addition of Pb from other Iberian sources (e.g., [64; 65; 66; 67]). The results presented here suggest that a significant fraction of the silver exploited by the Phoenician did not undergo fractionation, namely, originated from deep hypogene silver ores in Anatolia, Sardinia and Iberia. On the other hand, during both preceding and following periods within the Bronze and Iron Ages, more fractionated silver was exploited, although also originating from hypogene ores. This is further demonstrated in an earlier study by [39], showing that primary, unfractionated silver originating from Iberia was circulating during the 3 rd century BCE (Figure 2 in [39]). The Romans produced silver in Iberia from the 2 nd century BCE onwards [68]. They improved the production process, as indicated by the chemical compositions of their slags [20; 69], yet [PERSON] et al. [39] demonstrated that the silver produced by the Romans from the 2 nd century BCE onwards was mostly fractionated. We carefully suggest that this indicates, again, the uniqueness of metal exploitation by the Phoenicians, who exploited deeper primary ores. The Ag isotopes are therefore evidence of the effort, originality and novelty that the Phoenicians invested in silver production. The large quantities of silver in the Levant attributed to the Phoenicians attest to the rewarding outcomes of these efforts [6; 25]. The fact that Ag isotopes in many Phoenician silver items are unfractionated regardless of the origin or date of the silver suggests that the same exploitation methods were practiced in Anatolia and Sardinia in the 10 th century BCE, as well as in Iberia in the 9 th century BCE. The results further substantiate our previous suggestion that the Phoenicians were not only sailors.