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July 20, 2008
East is East and West is West
Here is an abstract of a paper presented at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Florida Academy of Sciences:
Tin trade failure in ancient Mesopotamia: The reason why the Late Bronze Age civilizations of Eastern Mediterranean fell. S. SAMEI. Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, 250A Baldwin Hall, Jackson St., University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Archaeological evidence shows that at some point between 1200 BCE and 900 BCE Eastern Mediterranean civilizations such as the Hittites collapsed. Numerous reasons for this collapse have been presented, but none provide a sufficient answer. Of the possibilities presented, one seems to be the winner. Despite all its flaws and despite the fact that by itself it cannot explain the mystery, this theory is nonetheless a strong candidate. As societies highly dependent on bronze, such cultures as the Hittites had a high demand of tin, an alloy of bronze. Where this tin came from is an old controversy. However, archaeological and geological researches point to rich tin sources in the west, in the present day Iran and Afghanistan. These sources could have been a great candidate for the bronze made in the Eastern Mediterranean. Though no substantial metallurgical work has been done on the matter, the ancient literature of the Early and Middle Bronze Age city-states does support this theory, presenting Mesopotamian trade routes as the ones used to transfer the tin from the west to Eastern Mesopotamia. However, through an assessment of the political and economic changes of Mesopotamia, this conclusion can be reached that the instability caused by these changes led to the malfunctioning and the possible ultimate termination of the flow of tin from the west to the east, thus leading to the ultimate fall of the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations a few centuries later. [emphasis added]
The thesis may have merit but seems to lack direction. As Aydin Örstan, from whom I stole the meat and the bones of this post, remarked on Snail's Tales, "Hold it, hold it! The Hittites lived in the present day Turkey and Iran and Afghanistan are located to the east."
Posted by Duane Smith at July 20, 2008 6:58 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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Comments
More geographical confusion 27 seconds into this short video clip of a presidential candidate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC0Y7zMcn_4
The "Iraq - Pakistan border"??? :D
Posted by: Mokum Olif at July 21, 2008 4:10 PM
Also is Bronze not an alloy of Copper with various other metals notably Tin rather than the other way round as they sometimes seem to suggest?!
Posted by: Tim Bulkeley at July 21, 2008 6:35 PM
Mokum,
This just proves that war is not the way Americans learn geography.
Tim,
I think this is at best (or worst) ambiguous. Tin (or sometimes something else) is alloyed with copper to make bronze. I will agree that if this is the usage the author intended, it is a strange usage in this case. It might have been better to say "tin, an alloy in bronze" rather than "tin, an alloy of bronze." Tin is an alloying element in bronze.
Posted by: Duane at July 21, 2008 7:59 PM
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