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Representations of oxhide ingots in Scandinavian rock art: the sketchbook of a Bronze Age traveller?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2015

Johan Ling  and
Zofia Stos-Gale
Johan Ling
Affiliation:
Archaeology, Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, Box 200, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden
Zofia Stos-Gale
Affiliation:
Independent researcher, Ifold, West Sussex, United Kingdom
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Abstract

Bronze Age trade networks across Europe and the Mediterranean are well documented; Baltic amber and bronze metalwork were particularly valued commodities. Here it is argued that demand for copper and tin led to changes in Scandinavian trade routes around 1600 BC, which can be linked to the appearance of figurative rock art images in southern Scandinavia. Images identified as oxhide ingots have been discovered in Sweden and suggest that people from Scandinavia were familiar with this characteristically Mediterranean trading commodity. Using trace element and lead isotope analysis, the authors argue that some bronze tools excavated in Sweden could have been made of Cypriot copper; these two discoveries suggest that Scandinavians were travelling to the Mediterranean, rather than acting through a middle man.

Keywords

SwedenCyprusBronze Ageoxhide ingotsrock arttrade networksamberlead isotopes
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 343 , February 2015 , pp. 191 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd., 2015 

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