This is the sixth Q&A for History of Mankind. Paid subscribers received an email soliciting questions and I got some.
I picked four that I think I can shed the most light upon. First, as it’s almost customary now, I will comment upon a recent piece of scholarship that I didn’t have the time to include in an older post.
This time, this is a paper published in November 2022 — so, right after I published “Diplomatic Dances of the Bronze Age,” which is where the reference would have been placed — about an old shipwreck found in 1982 off the southwestern Turkish coast, providing some important clues about the important trade of tin (fundamental to make superior bronze weapons) across western Asia.
The paper ( “Tin from Uluburun shipwreck shows small-scale commodity exchange fueled continental tin supply across Late Bronze Age Eurasia,” by Wayne Powell et al. Science Advances) explains that the Uluburun shipwreck, from around 1320 BC, was found to have one-third of tin ores from modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, with the remaining two-thirds from the Taurus Mountains then — in 1320 BC — in dispute between the states of Hatti and Mitanni:
While tin was arguably the most critical hard commodity in Eurasia for over 2000 years, the exact sources of tin and its distribution networks across Eurasia have remained largely speculative, with few exceptions. Here, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of 105 tin ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck (91% of the total tin cargo) using a combined methodology of Pb isotope, trace element, and Sn isotope analyses. This systematic approach permits reexamination of the possible sources of Uluburun tin and demonstrates that the composition of two-thirds of the ingots is consistent with a source in the nearby Taurus Mountains of Turkey. In addition, we document the chemical fingerprints of the remaining one-third (n = 35) of the tin ingots, tracing them to ore deposits in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, over 3000 km east of their final resting place.
Altogether, the tin in that single ship would have been enough to equip some 5,000 warriors with bronze swords. That is not nothing! And it definitely shows the relevance of long-range trade — even if in smallish volumes — at the time, with tremendous geopolitical implications.
This is an important paper, worth your attention if you have any interest in knowing more about the Bronze Age. Now, for the readers’ questions:
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