3600-year-old Swedish Axes Were Made With Copper From Cyprus

bicicleur 2

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new isotope analysis has shown that which is interesting

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.719125

However I find the reporter very biassed when he starts interpreting the rock carvings and talks about the Mediterranean ships.
He also quotes 'archeologists' without mentioning a name.

The amber trade routes are well known, it was not by sea, it was along the main rivers flowing south into the Baltic Sea. (mainly the Vistula)
Furthermore it is well known that the Mediterranean freight ships - like the Uluburun - of that era were not fit to sail the Atlantic or the North Sea.
They were not even fit to sail the Mediterranean during winter time, they only sailed during summer.
I doubt very strong that there was direct contact between the Noridc Bronze and the Mediterranean. A lot of middle men must have been involved.
 
new isotope analysis has shown that which is interesting

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.719125

However I find the reporter very biassed when he starts interpreting the rock carvings and talks about the Mediterranean ships.
He also quotes 'archeologists' without mentioning a name.

The amber trade routes are well known, it was not by sea, it was along the main rivers flowing south into the Baltic Sea. (mainly the Vistula)
Furthermore it is well known that the Mediterranean freight ships - like the Uluburun - of that era were not fit to sail the Atlantic or the North Sea.
They were not even fit to sail the Mediterranean during winter time, they only sailed during summer.
I doubt very strong that there was direct contact between the Noridc Bronze and the Mediterranean. A lot of middle men must have been involved.

How then do you explain the drawings of the ships, the ingot shaped objects, the bull-leaping scenes, Bicicleur?

Also, aren't the coastal sea lanes open in the summer around Sweden?

Ed. Haven't some scholars held that by 1500 BC ships were picking up tin from Cornwall? It was apparently the Phoenicians, but it would seem that by 1500 BC Mediterranean seamen could definitely sail the Atlantic as they sailed the Mediterranean, by hugging the coast. I don't find it too outlandish that they also made it along the northern coast to perhaps Denmark/Sweden.

"Some of the earliest references to tin come from Phoenician traders dating to 1500 BC.

Additional sources have been vaguely referenced only as the Tin Islands (Cassiterides), which the Phoenicians kept as a closely guarded secret. Of course, we now know that these islands represent the farthest reach of the ancient world, the British Isles.

http://www.unrv.com/economy/tin.php
 
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there was trade between the north and the Mediterranean, for sure, but it was through middlemen
the ships on the carvings don't look like the known Mediterranean ships at all and they don't have sails
and the Nordic Bronze age people had ships of their own
they were sailing the rivers into central Europe and there was also bussy trade in the southern Baltic
I see oxens or bulls on the carvings, but no bull-leaping, more like oxens pulling a plough
and I know of the speculations of the Phoenicians sailing to Cornwall for tin, but no actual proof for that has ever been found, this story was invented by people with the same biass as the reporter who wrote above article
this biass is not Nordicism, it is Orientalism or Mediterraneanism or something of the sort
I can recommend (again) 'Europe between the Oceans' by Barry Cunliffe
 
There's a relevant paper "The Bronze Age in SE Sweden Evidence of Long-Distance Travel and Advanced Sun Cult" (Nils-Axel Mörner, Bob G. Lind).
It was Mycenaean people the ones who arrived in big ships over the sea, trading amber for bronze and establishing a trading post in Southern Sweden according to the paper's authors.
 
There's a relevant paper "The Bronze Age in SE Sweden Evidence of Long-Distance Travel and Advanced Sun Cult" (Nils-Axel Mörner, Bob G. Lind).
It was Mycenaean people the ones who arrived in big ships over the sea, trading amber for bronze and establishing a trading post in Southern Sweden according to the paper's authors.

As far as I can see - I don't get the actual pdf - again there is evidence of trade, but not for ships coming from the Mediterranean and sailing the Atlantic and North Sea coast toward the Baltic. On the other hand there is proof of amber trade via the Vistula river toward the Mediterranean.
 
It was really probably due to indirect trade, another recent paper (2013) confirmed that most Scandinavian bronze age swords were made with Iberian and Sardinian copper starting from 1600 bc:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002689

There is no proof of any Mycaenean trading post in Scandinavia

Origin of the copper used for Metallic objects from bronze age Scandinavia:

Immagine.png

Note that the presence of Iberian, Sardinian and Cypriot copper dates back to several centuries before Myceneans traded directly with either Sardinia or Iberia, and while Myceneans did trade directly with South Italy, there is only proof of direct trade between Sardinians , Cretans and Cypriots as both imported and locally made Sardinian pottery was found in Cyprus and Crete, but not with Mycenean Greeks proper, though it's probable that took place too on a smaller scale.

And while a few Mycenean potsherds and Cypriot imitations did reach Iberia around 1300-1100 bc, it was probably through middlemen (probably Sardinians) according to archaeologists like Lo Schiavo.

To clarify, Myceneans most likely established some temporary emporiums in Sicily, Apulia and Calabaria, and probably Sardinia as well, but they established them in local settlements and the quantity of Mycenean pottery in the central mediterranean is really small, suggesting that trade happened sporadically.
There is no proof of Mycenean presence anywhere west of Sardinia, or North of the Adriatic coast, the few potsherds in Iberia are not even proof of direct trade since they're a handful.
All this went down around 1400-1200 bc.
There is proof of direct trade between Myceneans and the Adriatic coast of Italy, but it's very sporadic and dates back to this same period.


And to clarify further, Phoenicians were not present in the western Mediterranean, let alone the Atlantic before 850 bc conventionally;
the myth that Gadir dates back to 1100 bc is not substantiated by archaeology, it's just a Greek myth. The earliest Phoenician colonies (Utica, Gadir, Huelva, Malaga, Sulci) all date back to the late 9th century bc. So Phoenicians have nothing to do with the period of time we're talking about.

Since we're talking about the trading of copper, I'll post some interesting maps about the find spots of Cypriot type copper ingots, also known as "oxhide" ingots because of their peculiar shape:
Immagine.png


7d6a97b833db62518c3c0c5d38d52d42.jpg

A recent study about the interactions between Iberia, Sardinia and Cyprus during the late bronze age:

http://www.raco.cat/index.php/CuadernosArqueologia/article/viewFile/276368/392932

To sum it up briefly, there is evidence of sailors and merchants traveling in both directions, west/east and vice versa, pointing out to an exchange of ideas and technology between the Atlantic coasts and the Eastern Med, there is direct evidence of Sardinians acting as middlemen between Cyprus and Iberia.
Cyprus wasn't necessarily Mycenean, it was its own culture, though there was certainly a sizable Mycenean Greek population during the late bronze age in the island, Cyprus was its own kingdom, known as Alashiya to the Eastern Mediterranean kingdoms such as Egypt or Hatti, and it survived well into the 11th century bc, as confirmed by the Egyptian text of the travels of Wenamun.
And in the period we're talking about, 1600 bc, Cyprus didn't even have Mycenean Greeks living there yet.
Interestingly enough objects looking a lot like the oxhide copper ingots I mentioned before, were drawn in bronze age Scandinavian rock paintings. It is possible that they were traded indirectly across the Atlantic orthe European rivers and from there they reached Scandinavia, as you can see from my maps, an oxhide ingot was found in South France, Lo Schiavo thinks it reached France through Sardinian sailors, probably from France copper ingots reached Scandinavia through "French" and Central European middlemen as they were traded across the European rivers, and we know that the Nordic bronze age culture is linked to the Urnfield one.
Here's the map of the find spots of amber beads in bronze age Sardinia:

urn:cambridge.org:id:binary:20161117114859146-0178:9781139028387:76688fig6_6.png
 
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Would love to see a chart of british tin ?, How far and wide did it reach and at what dates ? Anyone ?
Summing up, we have a trade industry from cornwall to brittany and south down the coast of the biscay
bay, then via River and the horse and cart reach the Med cutting out the longer and more dangerous route
around spain. reaching sardinia and beyond, Maybe as far as turkey/lebanon/egypt ?
How long does this go back back in time ?
All very cosy and all so what changed in 1400 bc to cause the bronze age to end ?

How about Troy in england (iman Wilkens)
The Danans become Danes or Tuatha de danann even, the Greeks perhaps Germanic,
So that must make the Scots and Irish the Trojans and it would be about control of tin
mines, not a woman. this makes so much more sense to troy in turkey for which after
finding nothing whatsoever they just say its only a myth.
It just does not work they were describing the Atlantic ocean in northern europe
Check out the Isleham hoard, 6500 pieces from a late bronze age battle on uk soil.
I dont see why pinning a tag like (mycenean) to a people can help just connect the dots.
 
Sorry but I don't see Mycaenians or East Mediterranean traders in such epoch in north Europe, they didn't left any trace in Iberia (just a pot) as to reach directly Thule... I think that the value of bronze by then could be paraleled to gold now, so that regional trade or looting could act like a chain delivering products from afar (much more bronze as it could be reused further times)
 
This might seem a bit naïve, but is there a way to tell if swords were melted down and reworked into new styles? And if there is, would the dating be the same as the newest or oldest object formed out of the new sword?
 
This might seem a bit naïve, but is there a way to tell if swords were melted down and reworked into new styles? And if there is, would the dating be the same as the newest or oldest object formed out of the new sword?
Good question. I believe many metal tools were remelted and used in new tools. Any metal was very precious way back and wouldn't be wasted, except funerary offerings buried with dead. However, I don't think there is any scientific paper on this subject to hear it from experts.
 
Here is the answer I got from http://www.anvilfire.com/gurusden/
I don't think carbon dating steel in common, though from a quick google search it looks like it may be possible. And steel swords are rarely cast; it would be much more efficient to reforge a sword than melt it down.
If you actually did it, it would depend on how the sword was melted.
If you melted in in a vacuum furnace, I think the carbon isotopes, and therefore the radiocarbon date would be unchanged. Any other process I can think of would expose the steel to combustion gasses and/or flux, which would result in it absorbing some amount of carbon, changing the ratio of isotopes. It's also possible that an arc furnace could convert some of the carbon 12 and 13 in the steel into carbon 14, and thus make it date newer, but I'm not sure about that.


And how the original sword would have dated would depend on how it was produced. If coke were used in the original production, the steel would likely date to when the plants that made the coal that made the coke lived -- millions of years ago. Or rather something like "greater the 50,000 years," since that's as far back as radiocarbon dating can go (anything older has too little carbon 14 left to detect). Charcoal steel might date at the time it was made (or at least the time the trees used to make the charcoal grew), but if it absorbed any old carbon from limestone flux, it could also date older.

And even reforging a sword, particularly if you had to forge weld back into a billet, would likely result in it absorbing some carbon and thus changing the date (older, unless you forged with charcoal).
 
Nebra Sky Disc
1600bc Germany
Cornish gold and tin
Solar barge hmmm

Cornish tin - trade - boats - 1600bc
Ill put my neck on the block and say this trade started at least 3000bc and was the reason why the bronze age began in the first place.
The sites for ancient tin are listed as spain brittany/france and cornwall. Exactly the same as the trade route into the med and beyond.
The minoan king minos is associated with the labyrinth or Troytown, which is the source of the tin from Britain, the very same one that was
sacked around 1400bc. Bronze came out of europe not into it.

 
Nebra Sky Disc
1600bc Germany
Cornish gold and tin
Solar barge hmmm

Cornish tin - trade - boats - 1600bc
Ill put my neck on the block and say this trade started at least 3000bc and was the reason why the bronze age began in the first place.
The sites for ancient tin are listed as spain brittany/france and cornwall. Exactly the same as the trade route into the med and beyond.
The minoan king minos is associated with the labyrinth or Troytown, which is the source of the tin from Britain, the very same one that was
sacked around 1400bc. Bronze came out of europe not into it.


Bronze made in Europe used European raw materials. The knowledge of how to make bronze did not come from Europe.
 
Here is the answer I got from http://www.anvilfire.com/gurusden/
I don't think carbon dating steel in common, though from a quick google search it looks like it may be possible. And steel swords are rarely cast; it would be much more efficient to reforge a sword than melt it down.
If you actually did it, it would depend on how the sword was melted.
If you melted in in a vacuum furnace, I think the carbon isotopes, and therefore the radiocarbon date would be unchanged. Any other process I can think of would expose the steel to combustion gasses and/or flux, which would result in it absorbing some amount of carbon, changing the ratio of isotopes. It's also possible that an arc furnace could convert some of the carbon 12 and 13 in the steel into carbon 14, and thus make it date newer, but I'm not sure about that.


And how the original sword would have dated would depend on how it was produced. If coke were used in the original production, the steel would likely date to when the plants that made the coal that made the coke lived -- millions of years ago. Or rather something like "greater the 50,000 years," since that's as far back as radiocarbon dating can go (anything older has too little carbon 14 left to detect). Charcoal steel might date at the time it was made (or at least the time the trees used to make the charcoal grew), but if it absorbed any old carbon from limestone flux, it could also date older.

And even reforging a sword, particularly if you had to forge weld back into a billet, would likely result in it absorbing some carbon and thus changing the date (older, unless you forged with charcoal).
Steel is a special case and come into picture rather late in history. Tools made with copper, bronze and iron (except steel) were mostly casted. From all of this bronze was most precious, best quality and most expensive. For these reasons I expect it was reused, remelted.
 
But wouldn't the remelting make it appear as newer in testing for date, with the added carbon, since they obviously would have used coal or wood to burn?
 
But wouldn't the remelting make it appear as newer in testing for date, with the added carbon, since they obviously would have used coal or wood to burn?
To some degree, I guess. Carbone is added to iron on purpose to achieve steel. With copper, bronze and iron casts it is added accidently as contamination, in very small amounts.
 
This is a poorly written text but has data about Iberian-Scandinavian rock art similarity. Also dates for bronze technology . ( about 1/3 down page). Maybe it's just promoting the books?

https://www.academia.edu/22590425/B...Indo-European_and_Copper-to-Bronze_Age_Europe

"§3.The detailed summaries of the Iberian stelae and Scandinavian rock art : close enough to imply intense and direct contact ? Iberian metal for amber?"

http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue34/2/3-2.html
The Dover bronze age boat was seaworthy.
 
Its easier to get tin from Cornwall than from Afghanistan. Cornwall must have been a center.
But did they also to to America?
 

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