11 December 2023 The Future is the Product of the Past

Who will solve the puzzle of Bronze Age tin? Origin of tin ingots from Uluburun shipwreck disputed – the metal may have come from Cornwall

The exact origin of tin in the Bronze Age is the Holy Grail of archaeometallurgists: For 150 years, experts have been discussing the question of which mines the tin for all the swords, helmets, bracelets, plates, or jugs in the Bronze Age came from.

Discovering which mines the tin came from could provide far-reaching insights into early trade relations between Central Asia, Mesopotamia, North Africa, the Levant, and Europe, and thus into an early globalization that changed the world.

The key to solving this puzzle may be the cargo of a merchant ship that sank around 1320 BCE off what is now the west coast of Turkey near Uluburun. The wreck was discovered by divers in 1982 and its cargo recovered by underwater archaeologists. In addition to luxury goods, it contained 10 tons of copper ingots and one ton of tin ingots – much more than had ever been found before from the Bronze Age.

“Even 40 years after the Uluburun discovery, the tin puzzle remains, although we are getting closer to solving it by applying new methods,” says Ernst Pernicka, senior professor at the University of Tübingen and scientific director of the Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry (CEZA) at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim.

In a recently published study in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, CEZA researcher Dr. Daniel Berger and his co-authors including Pernicka contradict a research team led by Professor Wayne Powell of Brooklyn College in New York, who claimed in the journal Science Advances in November 2022 that they could clearly determine the origin of the tin from the Uluburun shipwreck.

Tin deposits and tin finds in the eastern Mediterranean, Middle and Late Bronze Age | Copyright: Daniel Berger / CEZA
Tin deposits and tin finds in the eastern Mediterranean, Middle and Late Bronze Age | Copyright: Daniel Berger / CEZA

Powell’s team said most of the tin came from the Mushiston tin deposit in northwestern Tajikistan, as well as from two mines in the Taurus Mountains near the present-day Turkish-Syrian border. For their analysis, the team took samples of 105 tin ingots from the wreck, determining chemical and isotopic signatures of 90 percent of the tin cargo. In particular, they measured the isotope ratios of tin and lead, which, like the chemical composition, provide clues to the origin of the tin. Also, the proportion of the trace element tellurium points to tin deposits in Central Asia. The Powell team claims to be able to infer a clear attribution based on the matching signatures between the ingots from Uluburun and tin ore samples from the abovementioned mines.

Berger and his fellow authors refute this, saying “The data does not support this interpretation; it does not allow a clear conclusion.” For the current study, Berger extensively checked chemical and isotopic analyses also from previous studies and cross-checked them with Powell’s data set. “Due to the isotopic ratios and chemical characteristics, it would be even more likely that at least part of the cargo of tin ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck originated from Cornwall in Britain. In particular, the comparison with Bronze Age tin ingots from Britain and Israel which we have considered in the past on a similar question of origin suggests this conclusion. Ultimately, however, it is also possible that the tin originates from the Saxon-Bohemian Erzgebirge or the Iberian Peninsula,” Berger says. He added that more samples and analyses of ores from European and Asian tin deposits were needed.

Overall, the Bronze Age lasted from the late fourth millennium to the early first millennium BCE – but with different beginnings and ends depending on the region of the world. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin in a ratio of nine to one, is significantly harder than copper alone. Copper ores are found in many regions of Eurasia and Africa. However, tin ores that were accessible in the Bronze Age can only be found in a few places in Central Asia, Iran and Europe. It is all the more astonishing that some of the earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Mesopotamian city-states of the Tigris–Euphrates river system. But there are no tin deposits there; the metal had to be obtained via long-distance trade.

“Numerous archaeological finds show that the British Isles and Central Europe formed an economic sphere with the Mediterranean region in the Bronze Age and was connected via the transport routes of the Danube, Rhine and Rhône rivers, or via the ocean,” Pernicka and Berger say. For instance, amber beads likely traded from the Baltic were found in the Uluburun wreck, indicating the existence of north-south trade routes.

The use of standardized weights had already spread in the course of the second millennium BCE, coming from Egypt and Mesopotamia, via Syria, Anatolia and the Aegean, and across the Alps to Central Europe. These standard weights were used to weigh merchandise, including tin ingots. For the time of the Uluburun ship, neither weight systems nor established trade connections to Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean can be documented for Central Asia, which underscores the likelihood that the tin originated from the west.

University of Tübingen

Cover Photo: Tin ingot in the shape of an ox-hide prior to cleaning. Institute of Nautical Archaeology

Related Articles

Egypt Traces Relics of Ramses III to the Arabian Peninsula

7 June 2021

7 June 2021

Following various findings showing ancient Egyptian King Ramses III had a presence on the Arabian Peninsula, an Egyptian archaeological team...

12 tombs with Beautiful Decorations and Carved Bricks from the period of Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, found in China

22 May 2023

22 May 2023

China has a rich history. In addition to the fossil records from the Paleolithic Period, the country has witnessed the...

Receding waters in Lake Van reveal rock-cut Urartian port

22 September 2022

22 September 2022

Located in the eastern province of Van in Turkey, the falling water level of Lake Van, with the decrease in...

Archaeologists unearth the Torah Ark of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, destroyed in Lithuania

30 August 2021

30 August 2021

In Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in excavation exposed the Torah ark and bimah (raised prayer platform) of the Great...

Mesolithic stone mace head found during excavation of a site near Buckingham

4 April 2023

4 April 2023

Archaeologists discovered an attractive Mesolithic stone mace head while excavation of a site near Buckingham. The work was done by...

2000-year-old quarry discovered in Jerusalem that could be the source of Second temple stones

5 September 2021

5 September 2021

Archaeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old quarry in Har Hotzvim, now an industrial park in Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority said...

Ancient settlements that challenge traditional thinking “Karahantepe and Taş Tepeler”

5 December 2021

5 December 2021

After Göbeklitepe in Şanlıurfa, which sheds light on 12,000 years ago in human history and is considered one of the...

Two rock chambers thought to be dining rooms unearthed at ‘House of Muses’ in southeastern Turkey

27 July 2021

27 July 2021

House of Muses, a Roman-era house named after the muse mosaics found in the area located in the ancient city...

An amateur archeologist has discovered a Roman war site

1 November 2021

1 November 2021

Thanks to the insistence of an amateur archaeologist, a Roman battlefield in Switzerland has been identified. Shortly before the birth...

Rare Hittite bracelet, 3300 years old, found by a farmer

28 March 2022

28 March 2022

A farmer in Turkey’s Çorum province discovered a rare 3,300-year-old ancient bracelet from the Hittite era while plowing his farm....

How Knossos Palace Looked in Its Glorious Days

9 May 2021

9 May 2021

Knossos Palace is a famous architectural structure of ancient Knossos, which was the capital of the Minoan Civilization. Archaeologist Arthur...

Climate has influenced the growth of our bodies and our brain

8 July 2021

8 July 2021

Over 300 fossils from the genus Homo have been measured for body and brain size by an interdisciplinary team of...

Early Roman Aqueduct Discovered in Turkey’s Aydın Province

27 May 2021

27 May 2021

In the Kuşadasi region of western Turkey’s Aydin, archaeologists and scholars unearthed an approximately 2,000-year-old ancient Roman aqueduct. Experts believe...

Ancient stone grenades discovered at Badaling Great Wall in Beijing

16 October 2023

16 October 2023

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed 59 ancient stone grenades from the ruins of a building in the western section of the...

Farmer Found Sarcophagus of Hellenistic Period in his Field

9 April 2021

9 April 2021

The citizen named E. G. in Akçakoca, Taşkuyucak District of Gölmarmara district of Manisa (Turkey), while plowing his field, thought...