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This article focuses on the manufacture and usage of selected sheet metal objects from helmets, a vessel, and two shields from the European Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, which date from the thirteenth to seventh centuries BC. Manufacturing traces on the surface, as well as metallographic investigations and the analyses of the alloy composition with scanning electron microscope-energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, provided an insight into the manufacturing techniques and the production of valuable, high-status objects, and highlighted the potential changes in manufacturing techniques and alloys used during different time periods.
INTRODUCTION
Finds of Bronze Age (c. 2200-800 BC) European metal defensive armor are, in comparison to weap- ons, rare: A total of roughly 300 metal helmets, shields, cuirasses, and greaves are known, whereas thousands of weapons such as swords, spearheads, and axes have been found all across Europe. This makes Bronze Age armor particularly outstanding, rare objects-even if most of them today are only fragmentary (Figs. 1, 2). Bronze Age armor has not been found everywhere in Europe: 30 cuirasses are known from Greece, the Carpathian Basin, and western France; less than 100 shields were found in the Carpathian Basin, the Czech Republic, and Northern Europe, including Ireland and the United Kingdom; and none have been found (so far) in Southern Europe. Greaves have been found in Greece, the Carpathian Basin, Italy, southern Germany, Austria, and western France. Today, around 60 Bronze Age greaves are known. Helmets are the most numerous group and are to be found everywhere in Europe (except in Northern Europe, Ireland, and the United Kingdom).
The helmets and shield fragments studied in this article (Fig. 1, 2) derive from modern day Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia, and the vessel was found in Brno, Czech Republic. During the Bronze Age, two main groups of sheet metal objects can be distinguished: The first includes armor and the second is composed mainly of containers such as vessels, cauldrons, and cups. Due to their rarity, size, material value, and high level of craftsman- ship, items of both groups are associated with the elite or chiefdom (most recently with an overview, Ref. 1). This means that big sheet metal objects such as armor or vessels indicate high value and the status of their owners in...