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3600-year-old Swedish Axes Were Made with Copper from Cyprus
- diminish 10y agoWhat if there's no supply chain, but rather the material are recycled from whatever axes or tools which travel during wars or conflicts?
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoThere probably wouldn't be as many carvings of Mediterranean ships delivering copper ingots lying around Sweden, for one thing.
- boxy310 10y agoThird paragraph in the article states that Nordic amber was heavily prized in Mycenaean Greece. Distances and climate in Europe are actually quite reasonable for overland journeys, especially considering that the ancient empires of the Middle East interacted in a substantial way for several millennia despite being much farther than a Greece-Sweden transit.
- iaw 10y agoI thought the shipwreck full of Copper ingots heavily implied trade.
- InclinedPlane 10y agoWe already know the supply chain existed, this is not a surprise.
- santoshalper 10y agoI understand why Northern Europeans would have wanted copper, but why did Mediterraneans want amber? Was it just a luxury good?
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoQuite possibly. It's no stranger than using gold as a medium of exchange. Some things are valued just for being decorative. Historically amber has also been used in perfume and folk remedies. I have no idea if the Mediterraneans were into that specificially.
- rory096 10y ago>used in perfume Are you confusing amber with ambergris? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoNope! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber#Scent_of_amber_and_amber_perfumery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber#Scent_of_amber_and_amber...
- kbart 10y agoAmber was called "the gold of the north"(1), there was even established a trade route (similar as famous Silk Route) from the North and Baltic seas to Mediterranean Sea. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Road
- alchemism 10y agoAncient Irish mythology describes people settling the island who first set sail from the shores of the Black Sea...so why not axes from Cyprus?
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoCan you provide a reference - is it the "black sea" or the Black Sea, if the latter what name was used for it in the oldest sources?
- arethuza 10y agoWell, traditionally the Scots in their legends said that we came from Scythia which is in that part of the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythia From the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath: "They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today." http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/the-text-of-the-declaration-of-arbroath-1-465230 http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/the-text-of-the-declaratio... NB One of the kingdoms that eventually became Scotland was the Irish/Scottish Dál Riata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1l_Riata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1l_Riata
- ci5er 10y agoI can't imagine the English name "the Black Sea" would have survived in Celtic, but it's interesting because the origins of the people and language appear to have been in Asia Minor (Galatia, modern-day Turkey).
- alchemism 10y agoIt wasn't referred to as the Black Sea, that was my summation of the journey as described in the legend. It is very similar to what arethuza posted about the mythical origin of the Scots.
- hownottowrite 10y agoAnd nearly all of the tin used in Bronze Age tools came from a single mining area in what is now Afghanistan. Recommended: Eric Cline's "1177BC, The Year Civilization Collapsed", great read on the state of the economy of the time (and from the title, its rather spectacular collapse).
- dpeck 10y agoNice video intro/discussion about the book for anyone interested. I haven't had a chance to read it yet but it is fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyry8mgXiTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyry8mgXiTk
- eternalban 10y agoAnd 'Prologue' courtesy of Princeton U: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/p10185.pdf http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/p10185.pdf
- SilasX 10y agoSo there was global trade in the 1100's BC?
- hownottowrite 10y agoThe Bronze Age was an amazing period in history. It's end has many parallels to the current state of international relations.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ucaetano 10y agoEMENA, not global.
- adrianN 10y ago
- lkrubner 10y agoIt's also been known for awhile that the metal products often went the other way. As early as 1200 BC a proto-Celtic people had some major copper/iron works set up along the Danube, and the trade went down the river and over Anatolia to the mideast. Jewelry with Celtic symbols were found in Sumeria.
- cmrdporcupine 10y agoEven further afield, there were extensive copper and gold mines, for export, in very early Ireland, also proto-Celtic times. Per Wikipedia re: mines in Cork and Kerry: "mining and metalworking took place there between 2400 and 1800 BC. ... Mines in Cork and Kerry are believed to have produced as much as 370 tonnes of copper during the Bronze Age. As only about 0.2% of this can be accounted for in excavated bronze artefacts, it is surmised that Ireland was a major exporter of copper during this period."
- jayess 10y agoFree trade!