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IslandChillin OP t1_iyhmfaa wrote

"Researchers from several institutions, led by Ernst Pernicka, scientific director of the Curt-Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry (CEZA) at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim and director of the University of Tübingen’s Troy project, applied a portable laser ablation system (pLA) to analyse samples of Bronze Age jewellery found in Troy and Poliochni.

Troy (also called Ilios or Ilion and Ilium) in present-day Hisarlik in Canakkale, Turkey – comprises of a multi-period site, now partially buried in an artificial tell illustrating the gradual development of the city in north-western Asia Minor. Troy was the famous setting for Homer’s Iliad (one of the oldest extant works of Western literature) that tells the story of the city being sieged by a coalition of Greek states.

Poliochne, often cited under its modern name Poliochni, was an ancient settlement on the east coast of the island of Lemnos. It was settled in the Late Chalcolithic and earliest Aegean Bronze Age, and is believed to be one of the most ancient towns in Europe, preceding the construction of Troy I."

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Maccus_D t1_iyjhne2 wrote

What are the chances it was a placer deposit?

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BodolftheGnome t1_iyjlbee wrote

I mean, merchants and travelers tend to end up moving way farther than we think

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PolymerSledge t1_iyjute2 wrote

When did we nail down the location of Troy?

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Hattix t1_iyjxmrs wrote

I wonder if this is related to Ophir. It's mentioned as a thing, not a place, in Paleo-Hebrew, but clearly began as a place where gold was found, and then became a term for any trading port where gold was sold.

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Bentresh t1_iyk0cnt wrote

Replying to pass_nthru (#842,318)

I’ll add that materials like tin and lapis lazuli were not the products of direct trade between the eastern Mediterranean and central Asia; they were passed along by a series of middlemen. For example, the Mycenaeans obtained amber from people in central Europe, who acquired it from the Baltic, ostrich feathers and eggshells from the Egyptians, who got them from Nubia, and so on. Tin would’ve been imported to Mesopotamia from states further east like Elam (in what is now Iran), which acquired it from the city-states of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (awkwardly named, I know) in what is now Turkmenistan and parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.

This is very different from the direct trade between regions via donkey caravans or ships — the Old Assyrian trade between Anatolia and the Assyrian city of Aššur, the 3rd/2nd millennium BCE trade between southern Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization, the trade expeditions between Egypt and the Horn of Africa, etc.

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runespider t1_iyk3sbj wrote

Replying to Wurm42 (#842,473)

We know that that kings would send gifts of gold to each other which would be melted down and repurposed. We have a letter to Ahkenaten's mom complaining about some fake gold statues sent by Ahkenaten

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KAISAHfx t1_iyk5fpe wrote

Troy? or a city we think may have been Troy there's so much conjecture around this but we just keep calling it troy

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gwaydms t1_iyk9b5r wrote

Replying to LibrarianWithNoJams (#842,353)

The level that Schliemann declared to be the one associated with the events in the Iliad was, in fact, a lot older than the Mycenean era, during which the Trojan War would have taken place.

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BalderSion t1_iykadsb wrote

Replying to BodolftheGnome (#841,899)

As I understand it, a key way to differentiate a neanderthal camp from a homo sapien camp is the the neanderthals only have locally sourced materials and homo sapiens have goods from all over Eurasia.

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Painting_Agency t1_iykp7xd wrote

Replying to NO_NOT_THE_WHIP (#842,261)

Schliemann's excavations at Troy were the first case that we learned about in my survey-level archeology course at university. Was he an excellent archaeologist? No. Was he better than most the people at the time who just dug things up and washed them off and sold them? Yes (although he also did that).

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Bentresh t1_iyks1q3 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#842,807)

Long distance trade declined toward the end of the Late Bronze Age — and in the Early/Middle Iron Age was increasingly carried out by private merchants rather than state-sponsored expeditions — but continued nonetheless. Imported materials like lapis and tin were still available and used in the Early Iron Age.

To quote Sarah Murray’s The Collapse of the Mycenaean Economy (2017),

>Snodgrass originally argued that the use of bronze in Greece decreased after the LBA because the supply of tin, which must have been brought to Greece from far away to the East or North, was cut off at the end of the Bronze Age, forcing Greeks to find a new metal from which to make their tools and weapons. According to this bronze shortage theory, trade routes bringing copper and tin to Greece broke down just after some areas of Greece had learned the art of ironworking from Cyprus. When they could no longer obtain copper and tin, Greeks turned their metallurgical attention to forging iron (in places like Euboea where they had learned how to do it) or to the recycling of old Mycenaean bronzes (in places like West Greece where they had not). Bronze became more abundant again when trade with the east was reestablished around 900.

>This theory has been controversial. Morris questioned the bronze shortage hypothesis on the grounds that it draws too simple a connection between deliberately deposited metal artifacts and originally circulating quantities of metal. He argued that the prominence of iron in burial assemblages during the EIA reflects new social strategies that were put into place by an emergent elite that used a different metal to set itself apart within society. In this view, the use of iron for tools and jewelry was not the outcome of need generated by the lack of a preferable metal, bronze. Rather, changes in the socially determined meaning of metals led to different types of deliberate deposition, which is what we see in the archaeological record. We might also imagine that as iron became more common in the PG period, demand for bronze would have declined, because metal made from a local ore had replaced many uses of the old exogenous resource. In any case, the notion that tin was in short supply in the EIA has found little support from analyses of bronze objects, which have normal to high tin contents. Snodgrass has now stepped back from his original position, and most scholars have followed suit, questioning just how much access to tin waned…

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AgrajagTheProlonged t1_iykyqhg wrote

Replying to BodolftheGnome (#841,899)

And even if the traders themselves didn’t travel the whole distance, there’s nothing stopping the traders from selling the goods to another traders who travel and sell the goods to another trader, etcetera ad infinitum

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Gsquat t1_iyl0d2d wrote

It's from Ophir, the land of creation, which we now call the Philippines.

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retardsmart t1_iyl0dpe wrote

Replying to Maccus_D (#841,764)

Pretty good. Are you familiar with the term "Golden Fleece"? They would stake down green(raw) sheepskins in creek and river beds. The fleece would act like modern miners moss and the natural oils would hang onto the gold particles. At the appropriate time they would chuck the sheepskins into a fire and the gold would be dug out of the ashes.

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AugustSprite t1_iyl2qj4 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#842,807)

I have similar suspicions. I've thought about how a small number of elites with bronze weapons and armour could control the masses. I can also imagine them suppressing iron technology. However, once one empire lost control, iron weapons and tools dispersed quickly, insurrections happened, and the whole house of bronze collapsed.

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akodo1 t1_iylggl0 wrote

During the stone age, amber from the baltic sea ended up in Egypt, and the trade continued well into the bronze age.

stuff moved LONG distances. Probably took dozens possibly hundreds of years passing through 100s or 1000s of merchants, but objects moved, even in the earliest of times

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ThrowRA2020NYEhell t1_iylju4j wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#842,807)

There was a pollen grain analysis study published a few years back that indicated a broad regional climatic shift, drought, and subsequent widespread famine resulted in mass migration. There are also cuneiform tablet correspondences between Near Eastern empires and Egypt in that time period attesting grain shortages and general civil unrest. So it's less likely that it was a disruption in tin trade directly that ended the LBA and more a breakdown and collapse of trade networks when hungry, angry people abandoned cities and went looking for "greener pastures".

This is a very general summary and it's actual way more complex than just sea people are climate refuges but I'd happy to talk more in-depth.

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SquishedGremlin t1_iylkcdy wrote

Where is Ur when it's at home?

I have only heard of it referenced in 40k, and assumed it was made up.

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zanillamilla t1_iylpc79 wrote

This is the second time today I read an article about the island of Lemnos. The first was about how the enigmatic language there was related to Etruscan and an ancient language in the Alps.

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Jackalodeath t1_iym7v8a wrote

Replying to Hippiebigbuckle (#843,889)

If I remember correctly, they went by shittymorph.

They took a small break during the pandemic; something about trolling enough people for a while or something. They still creep the subreddits as far as I know so keep your wits about you.

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UglyTitties t1_iyn2oxa wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#846,708)

Ok, so they found traces on the mummies, not in the tombs, and they have only been found on mummies in that museum. I'd say it's much more likely that someone probably thought it would be fun to do lines on the mummies at some kind of after work party.

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UglyTitties t1_iyn8fdc wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#846,991)

I'm theorising from what is laid out in your own source, that it might be caused by contamination. I find contamination much more likely than the Egyptians having trade routes with pre colombian people.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_iynj1j9 wrote

Replying to Ass_feldspar (#843,041)

Yes. Unless you're moving small and very high value objects, a boat will always be the better way to move bulk goods. One of the reasons Rome was so successful was the ability to use the Mediterranean to transport goods the way we use trains today.

I don't know how much tin is needed to make bronze, but I would hazard a guess that boats along the Indian ocean played a big role.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_iynjztj wrote

Replying to Deirdre_Rose (#844,766)

Something like the trojan wars do seem to have happened, there's signs of large battles at Troy around the time of the bronze age collapse. One theory I've heard was disruptions in the Greek world led to a giant raid in Troy, the wealthy trading city that guarded the route to the Black Sea, and by sacking Troy they ultimately disrupted the trade networks that brought tin to the region and contributed to the bronze age collapse.

Ultimately it's kinda unknowable, but it certainly fits with the Iliad actually having really good directions and the timelines of that era's Troy/Mycenaean civilizations collapse.

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Deirdre_Rose t1_iynn4xz wrote

Replying to I-Make-Maps91 (#847,562)

The Iliad doesn't actually fit the geography or the timeline very well. Also the people in the Iliad are physically bigger than humans, there are talking horses, and gods directly intervening. It is not a historical document.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_iynsfua wrote

Replying to Deirdre_Rose (#847,691)

>The Iliad doesn't actually fit the geography or the timeline very well.

Fits it well enough to find at least one city based on the descriptions in the book, and the existence is others is supported by other evidence. It gives accurate names to towns and cities that had but existed for hundreds of years and the clusters of cities mentioned being near each other are, in fact, near each other.

>Also the people in the Iliad are physically bigger than humans, there are talking horses, and gods directly intervening. It is not a historical document.

Don't be obtuse, stories often take inspiration from historical events and then embellish them for entertainment; it's an epic poem not a history book, history didn't exist as a thing to be studied and cared about until Herodotus. No one thinks Achilles was out there fighting a literal river god, but a large conflict between a unified Greece and the city they called Troy some time around the bronze age collapse is highly plausible, given supporting evidence from Hittite and ancient Greek sources.

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tomsan2010 t1_iyq8hpp wrote

Replying to Painting_Agency (#843,504)

Blew up actual troy in the search for troy. Found an older town underneath. Smuggled the gold out to greece and was caught because his wife was wearing a trojan necklace. But he atleast found it!

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