Ox hide ingot

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Below: Three ox skin bars from the Uluburun shipwreck
The ingot god of Enkomi in Cyprus
Ox hide ingot in the Museo archeologico nazionale of Cagliari

As oxhide ingot (in most cases older publications also Keftiu ; barren English oxhide ingots which designates) Archaeometallurgy one for the long-range distance trade throughout the eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age (1600 to 1000 BC..) Created large bar form, also known as vormonetäres cash ( Primitivgeld ) and was mostly made of raw copper , rarely of bronze . The copper bars in the shape of stretched cowhide were widespread as a commodity. The ancient bars are made of almost pure copper and weigh 20–40 kg, many of them between 29 and 30 kg, which led to the assumption that they corresponded to an Aegean talent of the time . There are also oxhide bars made of tin.

During the Late Bronze Age, copper was mined in the eastern Mediterranean, especially on Cyprus, which is rich in copper ore, and from there exported in copper bars in the form of so-called ox skin bars . Fragments of Cypriot oxhide bars from the 16th to the 11th centuries BC BC can be found in large parts of the Mediterranean, as far as Sardinia , in the Balkans and north of the Alps . Via the extensive Mediterranean trade of the Phoenicians , copper came from the copper island of Cyprus to the Egyptians, who adopted both the metal and the money form .

chronology

The earliest known bars in the shape of an ox skin were discovered in Crete - which had no copper deposits of its own -, in the Aegean ( Ayia Irini on Keos and Kyme on Euboea ) and in Palestine . The finds date back to the 16th and 15th centuries BC. Images of ox skin bars from this period come from Egypt. Probable representations of ox skin ingots were recently discovered at two sites in Sweden. In the Aegean, the bars, which are believed to have been produced in Cyprus, come from the 11th century BC. No longer before. In Sardinia, these bars were used for trade until the 10th century.

Locations

Oxhide ingot found in Kato Zakros , East Crete
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Oxhide ingots were found in Assyria ( Dur Kurigalzu ), Egypt ( Pi-Ramesse ), in the Levant , on Cyprus , in Asia Minor (including Hattuša ), Greece (several sites on the mainland and on Crete ), in the European part of Turkey ( near Tekirdağ on the Marmara Sea ), in Bulgaria ( Sosopol as well as Čerkovo, Černozem and Kirilovo), in Romania (Pălatca, Cluj district ), in southern Germany ( Oberwilflingen ), in southern France ( Sète ), in southern Italy , in Sicily ( Cannatello , Thapsos ) and Sardinia (including the metal hoard of Serra Ilixi near Nuragus ). Most oxhide bars have so far been found in Sardinia and Cyprus.

Important finds also come from the Uluburun shipwreck and a shipwreck from Cape Gelidonya . A fragment of an ox skin ingot was found in Qantir in the Nile Delta . The corresponding layers date to the 13th century BC. According to analyzes of the lead isotopes , the metal probably comes from the area of Apliki in northwestern Cyprus.

Ox skin tin bars

In the Late Bronze Age, ox skin tin bars from the ship found at Cape Gelidonya in the Bay of Antalya ( Lycia , 14th to 12th centuries BC) - today Turkey - should also be mentioned. An H-shaped tin bar was lifted out of the sea at St Mawes across from Falmouth Harbor . Its shape resembles the ox skin ingot of the Late Bronze Age. According to written sources, archaeometallurgy dates the ingot to the fourth century BC. Chr.

Copper trade

The bars and pottery finds - especially the Mycenaean pottery that can be found in many regions - prove the dense trade network of the late Bronze Age that spanned large parts of the Mediterranean.

Pictorial representations

Several pictorial representations of oxhide bars can be found in Egypt, e.g. B. in the tomb of the Egyptian Nb-Imn (highest relief maker 1385-1370 BC), where the smelting of metal or alloy is shown. In Enkomi on Cyprus, a horned god (late Cypriot phase III) is shown standing on an ox skin bar.

literature

  • Andreas Hauptmann / Robert Maddin: The copper bars from Uluburun. Part 1: Quality metal for the world market? In: Ünsal Yalçin (ed.): The ship from Uluburun. Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Bochum 2005, ISBN 3-937203-18-4 , pp. 133-141.
  • Noel H. Gate: The copper bars of Uluburun. Part 2; Lead isotope analysis of drill cores from the bars. In: Ünsal Yalçin (ed.): The ship from Uluburun. German Mining Museum, Bochum 2005, ISBN 3-937203-18-4 , pp. 141–148.
  • Anna Goslar: Ox hide ingot: Late Bronze Age copper trade in the Mediterranean area. 2008
  • Margarete Primas: Oxhide bars in Europe. In: Ünsal Yalçin (ed.): The ship from Uluburun. German Mining Museum, Bochum 2005, ISBN 3-937203-18-4 , pp. 385–392.
  • Kemal Sertok / Hamia Gullüce: ox skin bars from the central Euphrates region In: Ünsal Yalçin (ed.): The ship from Uluburun. German Mining Museum, Bochum 2005, pp. 393–398. ISBN 3-937203-18-4 .
  • Noel H. Gale, Zophia A. Stos-Gale: To the origin of the copper bars from the shipwreck of Uluburun and the late Bronze Age metal trade in the Mediterranean area. In: Ünsal Yalçin (ed.): The ship from Uluburun. German Mining Museum, Bochum 2005, ISBN 3-937203-18-4 , pp. 117-133.
  • Serena Sabatini: Revisiting Late Bronze Age oxhide ingots. Meanings, questions and perspectives. In: Ole Christian Aslaksen (Ed.): Local and global perspectives on mobility in the Eastern Mediterranaean (= Papers and Monographs from the Norwegian Institute at Athens, Volume 5). The Norwegian Institute at Athens, Athens 2016, ISBN 978-960-85145-5-3 , pp. 15-62.
  • Margarita Primas, Ernst Pernicka : The Oberwilflingen depot find. New results on the circulation of metal bars , Germania 76, 1998-1, pp. 25-65. online at Academia.edu

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This term was introduced by Hans-Günter Buchholz : Keftiubarren and ore trade in the second millennium BC. Prehistoric Journal 37, 1959, pp. 1-40.
  2. ↑ Sabatini 2016, p. 17 (with more recent documents); More detailed on this discussion: A. Bernard Knapp: Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus. Identity, Insularity, and Connectivity. OUP , Oxford 2008, p. 309 ff.
  3. ↑ Sabatini 2016, pp. 19–26, Fig. 1, 2b, 3, 4; P. 49f. Table 1.
  4. ^ Vasiliki Kassianidou: Cypriot Copper in Sardinia: Yet Another Case of Bringing Coals to Newcastle? In: Fulvia Lo Schiavo et al. (Ed.): Archaeometallurgy in Sardinia. Éditions Monique Mergoil, Montagnac 2005, p. 336.
  5. ↑ James David Muhly et al., P. 283
  6. ↑ Reinhard Jung: Aspects of the Mycenaean trade and product exchange. In: Barbara Horejs, Reinhard Jung, Elke Kaiser, Biba Teržan (eds.): Bronze Age interpretation room: Dedicated to Bernhard Hänsel by his students. , Habelt GmbH, Bonn 2005, p. 57. ( online )
  7. ^ James David Muhly : The Role of Cyprus in the Economy of the Eastern Mediterranean. In: Vassos Karageorghis (ed.): Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium "Cyprus between the Orient and the Occident" Nicosia, 8-14 Sept. 1985. Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, Nicosia 1986, pp. 55-56.
  8. ↑ to the last three finds Reinhard Jung: Aspects of the Mycenaean trade and product exchange. In: Barbara Horejs, Reinhard Jung, Elke Kaiser, Biba Teržan (eds.): Bronze Age interpretation room: Dedicated to Bernhard Hänsel by his students. , Habelt GmbH, Bonn 2005, p. 57. (with further literature)
  9. ↑ M. Rotea: The Middle Bronze Age in the Carpathian-Danube region (19th – 14th century BC). In: M. Rotea / T. Bader (ed.), Thracians and Celts on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains. Exhibition catalog Eberdingen , Eberdingen 2000/2001, pp. 25f., Fig. 14–15 (quoted from R. Jung); Reinhard Jung: Aspects of Mycenaean trade and product exchange. In: Barbara Horejs, Reinhard Jung, Elke Kaiser, Biba Teržan (eds.): Bronze Age interpretation room: Dedicated to Bernhard Hänsel by his students. , Habelt GmbH, Bonn 2005, p. 57f.
  10. ↑ Margarita Primas, Ernst Pernicka : The depot find from Oberwilflingen. New results on the circulation of metal bars , Germania 76, 1998-1, pp. 25-65.
  11. ^ Fulvia Lo Schiavo: The oxhide ingot from Sète, Hérault (France). In: Fulvia Lo Schiavo, James D. Muhly, Robert Maddin, Alessandra Giumlia-Mair (eds.): Oxhide ingots in the Central Mediterranean , Rom 2009, pp. 421-430.
  12. ^ Claudia Sagona: Beyond the Homeland: Markers in Phoenician Chronology . University of Michigan, 2008, ISBN 978-90-429-2014-9 , p. 463
  13. ↑ Fulvia Lo Schiavo: oxhide ingots in the Mediterranean and Central Europe. In: Fulvia Lo Schiavo et al. (Ed.): Archaeometallurgy in Sardinia. Éditions Monique Mergoil, Montagnac 2005, p. 307.
  14. ↑ N. Gale, Z. Stos-Gale: Copper oxhide ingots and the Aegean Metals Trade. New Perspectives. In: PP Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, R. Laffineur, W.-D. Niemeier (Ed.): Meletemata: Studies in Aegean Archeology presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as he enters his 65th Year. Kliemo, Eupen 1999, p. 272.
  15. ↑ Cf. George Fletcher Bass : Cape Gelidonya: a bronze age shipwreck (= American Philosophical Society 89). Philadelphia 1967; James David Muhly et al: The Cape Gelidonya Shipwreck and the Bronze Age Metal Trade In: Journal of Field Archaelogy 4. 1977, pp. 353-362.
  16. ↑ Cf. Hans Günter Buchholz: Keftiubarren and ore trade in the second millennium BC . In; Prehistoric Journal 37. 1959, pp. 1-40.
  17. ↑ Hans Drescher :  Bars. Tin bars. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 2, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1976, ISBN 3-11-006740-4 , p. 66 ( chargeable via GAO , De Gruyter Online).
  18. ↑ Hans Krähenbühl: The prehistory and early history of tin ore mining and the bronze age. ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) In: Bergknappe. 3/2001, p. 25. For further Egyptian depictions of ox skin bars see Sabatini 2016, p. 21 f., 25 f., 30. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.silberberg-davos.ch