A Late Bronze Age Shipwreck with a Metal Cargo from Hishuley Carmel, Israel

Galili, Ehud; Gale, N. H.; Rosen, Baruch

doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.2012.00344.x

Cited by 28 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…to Apliki copper was sufficient to pull it away from the Apliki LI range. Lead contents for Eastern Desert cassiterite have never been measured, but typical lead contents for contemporary tin ingots are in the 10-100 µg/g range (Galili et al, 2013). Exceptions exist, however, with 600-1200 µg/g Pb measured in some ingots (Begemann et al, 1999;Molofsky et al, 2014).…”

Section: Some Of the Other Intermediate Samples Could Be Identified Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Copper for the Pharaoh: Identifying multiple metal sources for Ramesses' workshops from bronze and crucible remains

Rademakers

Pernicka

2017

Journal of Archaeological Science

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The origin of copper used in Late Bronze Age (LBA) Egypt is very poorly understood despite its cultural and economic importance attested in archaeological and historical sources. Extensive literature discusses major LBA copper sources such as Cyprus (oxhide ingots), Oman (bun ingots) and Egyptian-controlled sites in the Sinai. This paper presents new chemical and lead isotope data for Egyptian copper alloys excavated in several bronze production workshops from the New Kingdom capital Pi-Ramesse, expanding on earlier data from Amarna. Supporting data is obtained from the analysis of crucible remains from the same context, for which the potential contribution of lead isotope analysis is critically evaluated. Diachronic changes in the provisioning of these Egyptian workshops are discussed, incorporating an extensive overview of currently known Egyptian mining and metallurgy. The results have major implications for our understanding of LBA copper circulation in the wider region, for the first time analysing a major Egyptian 'consumer' assemblage. The analytical results reveal a complex picture of variable copper supply to the Ramesside workshops, which involved both the recycling of existing bronzes and the use of freshly smelted copper from various origins to produce fresh alloys. Importantly, this includes crucial new evidence for the melting of (Cypriot) oxhide ingot fragments in crucibles for alloying. The royal, internationally connected nature of these workshops makes Pi-Ramesse an exceptional case study of LBA metal trade, and hypotheses raised in this paper highlight the urgent need for more extensive analysis of ancient Egyptian copper artefacts to grasp metal circulation throughout Egypt's long history. More refined frameworks, incorporating the variety of private as well as royal contexts, will improve understanding of Egypt's ancient economic organisation. This paper offers new perspectives onto LBA metal supply and consumption networks, with broader archaeological interpretative models of economic and political interactions across the wider ancient Near East.

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Section: Some Of the Other Intermediate Samples Could Be Identified Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Copper for the Pharaoh: Identifying multiple metal sources for Ramesses' workshops from bronze and crucible remains

Rademakers

Pernicka

2017

Journal of Archaeological Science

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“…The latter also applies to a group of 15 tin ingots recovered in four campaigns from an alleged shipwreck at the coast of Hishuley Carmel, Israel (Figs 1 and 4A), together with two oxhide copper ingots and several stone anchors [23–27]. Because the archaeological context was missing, the exact dating of the finds is uncertain, but ‘Cypro-Minoan’ symbols inscribed on the surface of several ingots suggest a LBA date of around 1300 BCE [23–24; 26]. For the same reason, Maddin et al [21] and Stech-Wheeler et al [28] assigned two rectangular tin ingots found off the Israeli coast near Haifa to the LBA (Fig 4B, 8251 and 8252).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(b) Three out of 30 tin ingots from Haifa with Cypro-Minoan inscriptions with their original label from the literature. Scale applies to all ingots on the figure (photos: E. Galili, Fig 4A modified and reprinted from [26] under a CC BY license, with permission from the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, original copyright 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isotope systematics and chemical composition of tin ingots from Mochlos (Crete) and other Late Bronze Age sites in the eastern Mediterranean Sea: An ultimate key to tin provenance?

et al. 2019

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The origin of the tin used for the production of bronze in the Eurasian Bronze Age is still one of the mysteries in prehistoric archaeology. In the past, numerous studies were carried out on archaeological bronze and tin objects with the aim of determining the sources of tin, but all failed to find suitable fingerprints. In this paper we investigate a set of 27 tin ingots from well-known sites in the eastern Mediterranean Sea (Mochlos, Uluburun, Hishuley Carmel, Kfar Samir south, Haifa) that had been the subject of previous archaeological and archaeometallurgical research. By using a combined approach of tin and lead isotopes together with trace elements it is possible to narrow down the potential sources of tin for the first time. The strongly radiogenic composition of lead in the tin ingots from Israel allows the calculation of a geological model age of the parental tin ores of 291 ± 17 Ma. This theoretical formation age excludes Anatolian, central Asian and Egyptian tin deposits as tin sources since they formed either much earlier or later. On the other hand, European tin deposits of the Variscan orogeny agree well with this time span so that an origin from European deposits is suggested. With the help of the tin isotope composition and the trace elements of the objects it is further possible to exclude many tin resources from the European continent and, considering the current state of knowledge and the available data, to conclude that Cornish tin mines are the most likely suppliers for the 13 th –12 th centuries tin ingots from Israel. Even though a different provenance seems to be suggested for the tin from Mochlos and Uluburun by the actual data, these findings are of great importance for the archaeological interpretation of the trade routes and the circulation of tin during the Late Bronze Age. They demonstrate that the trade networks between the eastern Mediterranean and some place in the east that are assumed for the first half of the 2 nd millennium BCE (as indicated by textual evidence from Kültepe/Kaneš and Mari) did not exist in the same way towards the last quarter of the millennium.

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“…The possibility that the site represents jettison rather than a wrecked ship is worth discussing. A similar nearby site containing heavy, metal artefacts concentrated on the sea bottom within the surf zone, has been discussed in detail previously (Galili and Rosen, : 17–18). It was concluded that during stormy sea conditions in this region, any act of jettisoning should have occurred in deeper water, further off shore and away from the coastal breakers zone, and the same is true for the Megadim site.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…Over the millennia, storms along this coast have driven many ships ashore, where they were grounded and disintegrated in the breaker zone (Galili et al ., : 366). Analysis of scores of sites along the Israeli coast showed that only heavy objects remained at wreck‐sites in the open, unprotected surf zone (Galili et al ., 2002, : 17–18, Galili and Rosen : 123).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A late 16th- to early 17th-century European shipwreck carrying Venetian ordnance discovered off the Carmel coast, Israel

Ridella

Galili

Cvikel

et al. 2016

International Journal of Nautical Archaeology

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A Late Bronze Age Shipwreck with a Metal Cargo from Hishuley Carmel, Israel

Cited by 28 publications

References 31 publications

Copper for the Pharaoh: Identifying multiple metal sources for Ramesses' workshops from bronze and crucible remains

Copper for the Pharaoh: Identifying multiple metal sources for Ramesses' workshops from bronze and crucible remains

Isotope systematics and chemical composition of tin ingots from Mochlos (Crete) and other Late Bronze Age sites in the eastern Mediterranean Sea: An ultimate key to tin provenance?

A late 16th- to early 17th-century European shipwreck carrying Venetian ordnance discovered off the Carmel coast, Israel

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