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Early Tin in the Aegean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

G. A. Wainwright
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Extract

It has been seen how tin evidently came to be known at Byblos (Gebeil) through the occurrence of its ore in the two rivers near that city. It has also been seen that its presence there mixed with copper ore led on naturally to the manufacture of bronze, which became known to the Egyptians as ‘Asiatic copper’. Now we may turn to the state of affairs far away to the north and west where conditions prove to have been totally different from those obtaining on the coast of central Syria.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 18 , Issue 70 , June 1944 , pp. 57 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1944

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References

* In ANTIQUITY, XVII, pp. 96-8. A supplement thereto will be found in the present volume on pp.100-1.

1 W. Lamb, Excavations at Thermi in Lesbos, p. 171 and fig. 50. See also pp. 173, 215 no. 30-24. For the date see p. 211.

2 It would have been preferable to have avoided dates in years, but we have to deal here with so many local cultural sequences that it is necessary to find some sort of common denominator which will bind them together. Except the Egyptian ones dates are still more or less in a state of flux, as new information keeps on coming to hand to define them more and more closely. Fortunately we have here only to speak of them in round numbers and for the present purposes they show the periods accurately enough.

3 Wainwright in ANTIQUITY, 1943, p. 96 ; cf. A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, p. 209. The pilgrim flask is certainly later than the time of Akhenaton, for stones of his time were re-used at the burial (Ayrton, Currelly and Weigall, Abydos, III, p. 50, and pl. XVII, fig. 20). The flask is therefore not earlier than 1350 B.C. The finger ring, which is the other earliest example of tin, is probably of the same date (Petrie, Illahun, Kahun and Gurob, p. 19).

4 Hubert Schmidt, Heinrich Schliemann’s Sammlung Trojanischer Altertümer, nos. 5942, 6131, pp. 235, 245, and figured in Beilage 11, facing p. 234. No. 5942 is also figured as no. 693 in H. Schliemann, Ilios, p. 459. For the date see Cambridge Ancient History 1, p. 80 and Synchronistic Table, p. 659.

5 Edgar in The Annual of the British School at Athens, III, pp. 49, 50, and fig. 18.

6 Petrie, Ancient Gaza III, p. 7, no. 1, and pl. XIV and photograph on pl. XV. The synchronism will be found on p. 12, but Petrie’s extremely early dates have not found favour. Another, pp. 7, 8, no. 13 and pls. XIV, XV, is equated with the Egyptian Sixteenth Dynasty, or, in the generally accepted scheme of dating, about 1600 B.C. The type was worn here again, but in a cheaper make, about 1450 B.C. Id. Ancient Gaza 11, pl. II, no. 24 and p. 7. A number of torque earrings are recorded in Ancient Gaza IV, but no dating was possible. At 1250-1200 B.C. there are three from Enkomi which look as if they were of this cheaper sort : A. S. Murray and others, Excavations in Cyprus, pls. VIII, IX and pp. 43, 39. They are dated by the woman-rhyton in faience which came from the same tomb as one of them, for the date of which see note 19, infra.

7 We might add that in the latter part of the Bronze Age, i.e. at some time between 1400 and 850 B.C. (Montelius in Archaeologia, 1908, LXI, 135, 142, 162) tin was being smelted in Cornwall. Some roughly smelted tin and a quantity of well smelted copper were found along with a piece of bronze cast off from the mould. The group was dated by a broken palstave and two fine socket-celts: Borlase in Archaeologia, 1886, XLIX, 181. For a description of the furnaces and methods employed in the smelting see Gowland in Archaeologia, 1899, LVI, 296 ff.

8 In The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 1928, XIV, 98-105, Lucas has published a survey of all those known at the time.

9 S. Przeworski, Die Metallindustrie Anatoliens, p. 91.

10 id. op. cit. 102.

11 V. Gordon Childe, The Danube in Prehistory, pp. 6, 32-5.

12 Davies in Journal of the Hellenic Society, XLIX, 92-4. The industry continued to flourish into Late Helladic, into Mycenaean, and right on into Byzantine times. The dates are those given by H. Bossert, The Art of Ancient Crete, p. 10. On various pieces of evidence newly available Miss Lamb, op. cit. p. 210, would bring the end of the Early Helladic Period down to 1900 B.C.

13 Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encychpädie, s.v. Krisa, cols. 1889, 1890, 1892.

14 The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1939, LIX, 137, 138.

15 H. Frankfort, Tell Asmar, Khafaje and Khorsabad, p. 56 (Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago, Oriental Institute Communications, no. 16).

16 Sir Arthur Evans, The Palace of Minos, 11, pp. 266, 269 note 1 and cf. 1, pp. 278-80.

17 The date 2000 is used throughout this article as that of the First Dynasty of Babylon, for it is that which was accepted at the time that nearly all the various studies quoted were made. It should be pointed out, however, that recently Sidney Smith in Alalakh and Chronology (1940), p. 29, has brought evidence to place the beginning of this dynasty as late as 1894 B.C.

18 Sir Arthur Evans, The Palace of Minos, 1, p. 198, fig. 146 ; 11, pp. 265, 266, fig. 158. The one from Platanos would date from between 1950 and 1900 B.C., for it was found with Egyptian (not Minoan imitations as has been stated) scarabs of the early Twelfth Dynasty: Sidney Smith, The Early History of Assyria, p. 203.

19 L. W. King, History of Sumer and Akkad, p. 344, note 3 ; A. S. Murray and others, op. cit. pl. IV, figs. 464, 695 and pp. 38, 39. At least two more of the Enkomi cylinders (Murray, pl. IV, figs. 606, 607) are contemporary with the foregoing. They are not Mesopotamian, but belong to Frankfort’s First Syrian Group, which he dates to 2000-1700 B.C., Cylinder Seals, pp. 252-8. The tombs had evidently been re-used many times. In the first place this latter pair came from a tomb with a scarab of Tiya, wife of Amenhotep III, at about 1400 B.C. (Murray, p. 54, tomb 93 and p. 36, no. 608). Of the former two cylinders no. 695 had little to date it, but no. 464 was found in Tomb 84 with a quantity of Late Helladic III pottery (for the period of the Enkomi pottery see H. Bossert, The Art of Ancient Crete, figs. 475-77, 482, 483, and p. 42). This final use of the Enkomi tombs can be dated to 1250 B.C., by the presence of the faience rhyton in the form of a woman’s head (Murray, pl. III). Similar rhytons (Bossert, figs. 499-501) come from a tomb at Ras Shamra which dates to the thirteenth century : Schaeffer in Syria, 1933, XIV, pls. XI, 1, XII, 3, 4, and p. 106. For the precise dating of such rhytons to 1250 B.C. see Hall in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1928, XLVIII, 74. In the same way the cylinder from Hagia Paraskevi to be mentioned in the next lines was found in a tomb of the Late Bronze Age, i.e. about 1500-1200 B.C. Thus all these cylinder seals were found among objects which were many hundreds of years later than they.

20 For these and the ones from Enkomi see H. B. Walters, Catalogue of the Engraved Gems and Cameos, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the British Museum, 1926, pl. III and pp. 14 ff.

21 Bezold in Zeits.f. Keilschriftforschung II, pp. 191-3. The date is settled by King, loc. cit. and cf. W. Hayes Ward, The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, pp. 344, 345, no. 1159. The tomb and the group with which the cylinder was found is published in M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros the Bible and Homer, pp. 34, 35, figs. 34-6 ; or else pl. CLXXI, fig. 14. It is of the Late Bronze Age which J. L. Myres, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus (New York), p. 31, puts as running from 1500 to 1200 B.C. Thus,, here again, as at Enkomi the cylinder seal was found among objects much later than itself.

22 L. Palma di Cesnola, Cyprus, pl. XXXI, fig. 1, facing p. 392. On pp. 316, 325, this and others are reported as having formed part of the great treasure of Curium, but there is considerable doubt about this, Myres, op. cit. p. XVI. It is here published again as no. 4300 on pp. 429, 430 and pl. facing p. 430. King, op. cit. pp. 343, 344, has established the date as that of the First Dynasty of Babylon, i.e. round about 2000 B.C. When Sayce first read the name, it was naturally supposed to be that of the famous and much earlier Narâm-Sin, a successor of the equally famous SargoiTof Agade, Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archy., 1877, V, 442.

23 Report of an address by Prof. Dossin in Comptes rendus de l’acad, des inscc. et belles lettres (Paris) 1938, p. 367. Kaptaru, i.e. the Caphtor of the Bible, was a distant land beyond the Upper sea (the Mediterranean), as will be seen in the next lines. At one time scholars located it in Cyprus, and now on the strength of the Cytheraean inscription just discussed Weidner suggests that the name Kaptara might be brought into direct relation with that of Cythera, but discreetly adds ‘with the utmost reserve’. It is generally thought to be Crete, and has commonly been thought to be the land of Keftiu of the Egyptian inscriptions. However, if Kaptara should be Crete, it cannot be the same as Keftiu in spite of the similarity of the two names, for Keftiu was definitely not Crete : Wainwright in Annals of Archaeology znd Anthropology (Liverpool) 1914, pp. 24-83 ; id. in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 1931, pp. 26-43 ; Gordon in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 1932, pp. 67, 68 ; Wainwright in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1931, pp. 1-38; id. in Palestine Exploration Fund : Quarterly Statement, 1931, pp. 203-16. Keftiu was the southern coasts of Asia Minor, and now Prof. Claude Schaeffer’s excavations at Ras Shamra show that it must be extended to include the north Syrian coast as well.

24 Albright in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1925, XLV, 242.

25 Like all other dates, that of Sargon of Agade has been progressively brought down lower and lower. Originally he was put at about 2850 B.C., then he came down to about 2650 B.C., and now he has come lower still, to about 2450 B.C.

26 M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros the Bible and Homer, fig. III, p. 83, and pl. CLI, fig. 34, which is described on p. 455 as having been found with the other. They are nos. 181 and 136b respectively of W. Hayes Ward, The Seal-Cylinders of Western Asia, pp. 53, 69.

27 Hagia Paraskevi goes back to the earliest Bronze Age, for the good polished red-ware characteristic of this period was much in evidence in a small test excavation: Myres in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1897, XVII, p. 135. This earliest period is put at 3000-2000 B.C., id. Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, p. 8.

28 i.e. the Sun-god crushing his enemy against a mountain: H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals, p. 100, § c.

29 W. Hayes Ward, op. cit. no. 183, pp. 69, 70. He says it was obtained in Cyprus by Gen. di Cesnola, but I do not find it in his book, Cyprus, nor yet in Myres’ Catalogue of the Cesnola Collection, nor yet again in A. P. di Cesnola, Salaminia. In his Index of illustrations Ward says on p. X that it is in the British Museum, but I do not find it in H. B. Walters, Cat. of Engraved Gems. The cylinder seems to have been published originally by J. Menant, Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1879, pt. 11, pp. 478 ff. and pl., and again by Menant, Glyptique orientale, I, pl. I and pp. 31, 75. Menant says it is in the New York Museum, but says nothing of its provenance.

30 Forrer and Weidner think that he must be the Sargon of Assyria who reigned about 2000 B.C., Weidner, op. cit. p. 138. Sidney Smith, Early History of Assyria, p. 170, also puts him at this time, about 1985 B.C. He must not only be distinguished from Sargon of Agade who was much earlier than he, but also from the other famous and much later Sargon who reigned in Assyria at the end of the eighth century B.C., and actually set up his stele at Citium (Larnaka) in Cyprus: Sir George Hill, A History of Cyprus I, p. 104 and pl. IV facing p. 106. To a non-Assyriologist it would seem as if in the course of centuries the memory of these distant lands, Anaku and Raptara, with which there had only been trade at the time of a little known Sargon, had gravitated to the saga of the heroic personality of Sargon of Agade, and, by claiming his conquests to have extended to the uttermost ends of the earth, these countries had served ad majorem Sargonis gloriam.

31 Sidney Smith, op. cit. p. 182.

32 Albright, loc. cit., p. 244, 1. 41, and the commentary on pp. 236, 237.

33 The word has lasted on into Arabic as anuk with the meaning ‘pure lead’, E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 1, p. 118, s.v. There is regularly confusion in antiquity between these two metals. The Egyptians had two metals, one called dhty and the other dhy. On the strength of the Coptic taht, which clearly means ‘lead’, this would be the metal for which dhty stands. Dhy would then be ‘tin’, and it does not appear until the Eighteenth Dynasty, the time at which tin was first known in Egypt as a separate metal. Even as late as Roman times Pliny and others were calling lead plumbum nigrum and tin plumbum album or candidum. Though in the first century A.D. Pliny uses a word stagnum for an alloy of silver and lead (for a very full discussion of the whole question of stagnum, stannum, Cassiterides, etc., see K. C. Bailey, The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on Chemical Subjects, I, p. 209 ; 11, pp. 191-4, 196), stannum with the meaning of ‘tin’ is a late Latin word, first used by Jerome in the fifth century (Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary, S.V.), and is related to the old Celtic root stagnö-, whence comes the Irish stán, the Welsh ystaen, and the Breton sten. A. Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, II, col. 1631, s.v. stagnŏ. Like the Romans, the Arabs are very uncertain about their nomenclature, Rasas means ‘lead’ and this is of two qualities, black and white. White rasas is also called qasdir, i.e. tin or pewter (Lane, op. cit. 1, p. 1092 s.v. rasas). Qasdir is used for ‘solder’ in the modern Egyptian dialect. Though the Romans were still confused about the two metals, the Greeks had long known them apart, calling lead and tin. Can their two mines have helped them to distinguish them from each other ? Strangely enough both the words are non-Greek and of unknown origin, É. Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, pp. 419, 420, 644. For a discussion of the possibility of a Celtic origin of and a full bibliography dealing with this and other suggestions see H. Hubert, Les Celtes et l’expansion celtique jusqu’ à l’époque de la Tène, pp. 207, 208.

34 See for instance Driver in Zeits.f. Assyriologie, XXXVIII, pp. 217 ff. passim; G. Eisser and J. Lewy, Die altassyrischen Rechtsurkunden vont Kültepe, pp. 97-195, passim (published as Mitt. Vorderas. -aeg. Gesellschaft, XXXIII, 1930).

35 Smith, The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society, 1922, pp. 176 ff. These actual specimens may be later in date, i.e. 1400—1200 B.C., but this is only conjecture, p. 180.

36 É. Ardaillon, Les mines du Laurioh dans l’antiquité, p. 81.

37 id. op. cit. 87, 118 and fig. 25.

38 id. op. cit. p. 127.