Tin Trade

Uno studio approfondito su Reitia, la somma dea dei Veneti, scoprendo le analogie con le dee solari del Nord-Europa. Attraverso mito e archeologia nuove concezioni ampliano gli orizzonti dell'antropologia dei Veneti antichi. Nove pagine di bibliografia internazionale.

A basic problem concerning the interpretation of the Nebra Sky Disc is the question as to whether Egyptian and Near Eastern influences must be taken into consideration. This arises particularly with regard to the meaning of boats and ships in attempts to explain the cosmology of early cultures. In this contribution will be initially examined, which role boats and ships had in the Aegean, whereby it is established that in the Aegean – the link between the early advanced civilizations and Central Europe – no directly comparable ideas of a sun barge reveal themselves. Boats, however, played a prominent role also in religious ideas. The significance of long-distance contacts in the Early Bronze Age is then examined also with regard to the role of seafaring. It is emphasized which changes had an effect on the Aegean under Near Eastern influence in the Early Bronze Age and integrated this territory as the westernmost fringe of the Near Eastern socioeconomic system. The trade of metals, e.g. of tin, serves as a key to the understanding of the far-reaching, indirect contacts in the area between the Aegean and Western India. On the other hand the extent of contacts between the Aegean and Central Europe in pre-Mycenaean times was of considerably smaller scale, and this is primarily due to the different socioeconomic prerequisites.

Update and elaboration on topics discussed in 'Trojans at Totnes and Giants on the Hoe' (2016) see https://www.academia.edu/30498926/Trojans_at_Totnes_and_Giants_on_the_Hoe_Geoffrey_of_Monmouth_Historical_Fiction_and_Geographical_Reality

In the twelfth century crusader fleets mustered in the natural harbour at the mouth of the River Dart in Devon before setting off on the long voyage to the Holy Land. Other early evidence confirms that this was an important staging post on the sea-route from England to western France, Spain and the Mediterranean. It is surely no coincidence that in his largely fictional History of the Kings of Britain, the contemporary author Geoffrey of Monmouth envisaged a fleet of ships, carrying descendants of the Trojans who had fled when the Greeks captured and destroyed their city, making landfall in the same vicinity, on ‘the coast of Totnes’.

SUMMARY: Lecture 11 provides a summary of MB Age Anatolia, including the Assyrian trade with Kultepe-Kanesh  (bringing textiles, tin, & other items), and secondary Assyrian merchant trade (especially transporting copper) across Anatolia, connecting other Anatolian city-states; discusses Indo-Europeans. This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources. REVISED Feb. 2024: Some new images, slides, text, revisions, formatting, and added sources.

The Homeric Island of Tenedos (Tanatus) will be identified with The Isle of Thanet (Tanatus) and appears to be the first destination of Odysseus' second voyage after his visit to Kirke, where he had to pass the first initiation test of continence with the Seirenes, also called Tenitae.

This essay aims to give a comprehensive overview of the production, uses and provenance of tin in the Ancient Near East. When discussing the production method of tin, focus is put on the extraction of the main tin ore, cassiterite, and on its processing from raw material to easily transportable tin ingots. The chapter on the uses of tin discusses both the applications of pure tin and the use of tin in the production of high quality bronzes. Pure tin would in rare cases be used for the making of artefacts, but was more commonly used as a coating, a solder or a means of payment. However, the most important application of tin was undoubtedly its alloying with copper to form bronze. The advantages of bronze over copper are discussed, as well as the transition from earlier arsenical bronze to tin bronze. Finally the provenance of tin in the Near East is examined and the writer concludes that, with the emergence of new geological and archaeological data, this issue might not be as complicated as previously imagined. A map composed from information from numerous different articles shows the newly discovered tin mineralizations in the Near East and reinforces the theory that tin was first locally exploited before being imported from Central Asia. (Original text in Dutch)

Phoenicians established a commercial network throughout the Mediterranean and part of the Atlantic which helped to achieve consolidation, especially from the mid-eighth century BC, and paid special attention to the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, settling in all river mouths with access to sea from the Bay of Cadiz to the Gilão river in the Portuguese Algarve. This was motivated no doubt by the good conditions that were offered in this area for the purchase of raw materials and by the strength that reached the port of Huelva especially from the Late Bronze Age as trade center for sourcing of metals like silver and to a lesser extent copper and tin.

In this conference I intend to show some clues that demonstrate the metals trade with the Phoenicians in the pre-colonial phase and instruct the GIS-project that I developed during these three years in this area of study. It focuses on investigation of the Archaeomining and Archaeometallurgical evidences about the exploitation of copper and silver in the ambit of the Tartessian southwest between around 10.-6. century BC. Also, where and how the Phoenicians had access to these goods arises.

Event: Final RITaK Conference 2014." Resources Innovation of ancient cultures Technology "
Organisation: Bochum, Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum /Ruhr-Universität Bochum – Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften
Location: Bochum, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland
Conference Date: November 27-29, 2014