7th/6th century BC iron blooms recovered off Israeli coast

[DBS]

Found via a Times of Israel article, a paper in nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s40494-026-02409-7
with a freely accessible pdf download, regarding nine unworked iron blooms recovered from the seabed just off the northern Israeli coast.

Interesting as a) very early iron blooms, and b) they are unworked but clearly being transported by sea when lost in a wreck, disproving the common assumption that smithing/refining of the blooms followed straight on from smelting, and that only refined iron ingots/billets would have been worth transporting.