Cyprus’ role in maritime trade reassessed

Cyprus’ role in maritime trade reassessed

The four pieces of lead from the shipwreck. © Ehud Galili

Little Cyprus may have played a far more active role in Bronze Age maritime trade in the Mediterranean than previously thought. Four pieces of lead from a 3,200-year-old shipwreck provide evidence of this. Analyzes show that the lead came from Sardinia, but the inscriptions from Cyprus. Archaeologists conclude that Cyprus played an active part in the maritime trade in metals at the time.

In the Bronze Age, many advanced cultures in the Mediterranean region flourished – from the Egyptians to the Minoans and Mycenaeans to the riches of Mesopotamia. In the course of this development, lively maritime trade developed in this region. Ships brought raw materials to the centers of metal and ceramic processing and transported the goods manufactured there to their customers. The various empires and cultures maintained close economic and diplomatic relations.

Finds from the shipwreck

However, unlike the larger players in Bronze Age maritime trade, little Cyprus was seen as a rather minor and passive part of this trading network. Although copper was mined on the island – one of the basic components of bronze, which was important at the time, it was assumed that this raw material was then taken over, transported and traded by others. But now there are early indications that Cyprus may have played a more active role in maritime trade after all, rather than just being a producer of commodities.

Four pieces of lead were found by archaeologists in the 1980s in a Bronze Age shipwreck discovered off Caesarea in Israel. A team led by Naama Yahalom-Mack from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem recently examined these approximately 3,200-year-old pieces of lead more closely for the first time. To do this, they first subjected the lead to an isotope analysis in order to clarify its origin. This showed that this metal, which is also used for the production of bronze, must have been mined in a mine on Sardinia.

Larger trading network than expected

What was decisive and surprising, however, were the incised characters on the four pieces of lead. Closer investigations and comparisons with the characters of various Bronze Age scripts revealed that these markings belonged to the Cypro-Minoan script – a script also known as Linear C that has not yet been deciphered and was used in Cyprus from the 15th to the 12th century BC . However, this means that the pieces of lead must have reached Cyprus from Sardinia or were intended for workshops in Cyprus and were therefore marked accordingly before they were transported by sea, as the scientists explain.

That was unexpected, the archaeologists explain. Because Sardinia is not only 2,500 kilometers from Cyprus in the western Mediterranean, “it was also off the Cypriot trade routes that included Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia and the Aegean,” explains Yahalom-Mack. She and her team conclude that Cyprus was not just a mere supplier of copper, but that it was a much more active participant in the metal trade at the time. “We suspect that they also imported tin along with the lead – a metal that is coveted for the production of bronze,” says the researcher.

According to the research team, the finds suggest that Cyprus had a more extensive trading network than previously thought. The Cypriot traders may have benefited from the fact that many of the advanced cultures in the Mediterranean region around 1200 BC. experienced a period of decline or at least weakening of their economy and influence. The small but agile maritime power of Cyprus may have taken advantage of this to fill some of the resulting gaps in the maritime trade network.

Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Specialist article: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103321

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