Pick-shaped ingot

The pick-shaped ingots are a specific type of Late Bronze Age ingots, cast in one-piece mould. Their main areas of distribution are regions, adjacent to extreme eastern and western parts of Alpine arch (Friuli plain in Italy, western Slovenia, Rhône–Alpes region in France), but also hoards in northern and central Italy as well as in Panonnian plain. They are dated to 11th and 10th centuries BC. The completely preserved pane a piccone from Dragomelj weighs 2844 g, which represents almost exactly a multiple of 6 of the basic weight unit (475 g) of all completely preserved European pick-shaped ingots. This weight unit denotes the appearance of eastern Mediterranean and Cypriot weight standards and along with them contemporaneous long distance exchange contacts in the northern Adriatic and Alpine regions.