Sources of Tin and the Beginnings of Bronze Metallurgy Author(s): James D. Muhly Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 89, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), pp. 275-291 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504330 Accessed: 03-11-2015 18:02 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504330?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Tue, 03 Nov 2015 18:02:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sourcesof Tin and the Beginningsof Bronze Metallurgy* JAMES D. MUHLY transformed and also-an inevitable corollary-that Abstract there are at present no up-to-date surveys or works of Recent discoveries of Bronze Age tin ingots and tin synthesis.4 artifacts,together with new geologicalevidence on tin de- Many basic problems remain and, in certain areas, posits in Europe, the Mediterraneanand Western Asia, we provide the opportunityto survey the evidencefor possi- have yet to see a major breakthrough or significant ble sourcesof tin and the first use of bronze in the eastern change in traditional confusion. Foremost in the latter Mediterranean and in Western Asia. Afghanistan now category must be the problem of ancient sources of tin. emerges as the most promisingeastern sourceof tin, with It is remarkable that, after twenty years of intensive western sources most likely located in southern England scholarly investigation and fieldwork, we still have no and Brittany. Central European tin sources still provide serious problems within the context of the nature of hard evidence regarding the sources of tin being ex- Bronze Age mining technologyand the type of cassiterite ploited by the numerous and widespread bronze in- being utilized at that time. dustries of antiquity.5 The main sources of tin exploited by the industrial- During the past ten years there has been an enor- ized countries of the world since at least the sixteenth mous increase in the degree of interest and the quan- century are located either on the fringes of the ancient tity of publication on all aspects of ancient metallur- world-in southern England (Cornwall and Devon) gy.' The field has acquired a new name, archaeomet- and in Burma, Thailand and Malaysia-or in places allurgy, used by at least one Institute for Archaeo- such as Bolivia, Kazakhstan and China that were far Metallurgical Studies, with several other programs beyond the reaches of a world centered on the Medi- devoted to research in the field.2 The discipline now terranean.6 What contact there was with countries has its own journal,3 a sure sign of status in the re- such as China was only of a most exotic nature and search climate of today. It is obvious that our under- virtually non-existent in any form prior to the time of of standing many basic aspects of the field has been the Roman Empire (ill. 1).7 * This article is based upon the paper delivered at the Chrono- Bulletin were rather informal, with volume numbers only begin- logies in Old World Archaeology Seminar, Columbia University, ning in 1967 (so that vol. 1 of the Bulletin is also no. 9). on 9 December 1982, at the kind invitation of ProfessorEdith Po- 4 R.F. Tylecote published, in 1976, a brief A History of Metal- rada. The author would like to take this opportunity to thank his lurgy (Metals Society, London), covering the use of all metals, colleagues throughout the world for providing him with copies of precious and base, down to modern times. The volume edited by their publications. Special thanks are due to Professor Tamara T.A. Wertime and J.D. Muhly, The Coming of the Age of Iron Stech (University of Pennsylvania) and Professor Robert Maddin (New Haven 1980), does, as the title indicates, deal mainly with (Harvard University) for their advice and constructivecriticism. iron but also providesa historicalbackground to the beginnings of 1 The interval is, with no little arroganceand, I hope, some small the Iron Age. justification, based upon the publication, in 1973, of my book on 5 For background, see J.D. Muhly, "Tin Trade Routes of the Copper and Tin. The Distribution of Mineral Resourcesand the Bronze Age," American Scientist 61 (1973) 404-13; also "New Nature of the Metals Tradein the Bronze Age (Transactionsof the Evidence for Sources of and Trade in Bronze Tin," in Age A.D. Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 43; Hamden, Conn. Franklin,J.S. Olin and T.A. Wertime eds., The Searchfor Ancient 1973, issued in 2nd ed., with Supplement, in 1976). Tin (Washington, D.C., 1978) 43-48; R. Maddin, T.S. Wheeler 2 The Institute for Archaeo-Metallurgical Studies (IAMS) is at and J.D. Muhly, "Tin in the Ancient Near East: Old Questions the University of London. At the University of Pennsylvania we and New Finds,"Expedition 19.2 (1977) 35-47. have establishedthe Programfor Ancient Metallurgy, while anoth- 6 For world tin resources, see World Mineral Statistics (Institute er programon archaeometallurgyis part of MASCA at the Univer- of Geological Sciences, London 1979). Total world productionin sity Museum. For the various groups now conducting research in 1976 was 197,000 tons. Of this Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia the field, see the special series of articles in T. Berthoudet al., "Pro- produced 107,271, China, 20,000 and Bolivia, 30,355. This ac- duction, &changeet utilisation des mitaux: bilan et perspectivesdes counts for 80%of the world total. See also P.J.H. Rich, "Futureof recherchesarchbologiques ricentes dans le domaineoriental," PalM- Tin as a Tonnage Commodity,"Transactions, Institution of Min- orient 6 (1980) 99-127. ing and Metallurgy 89A (1980) 8-17 (with correctionon p. 106 3 What began in 1963 as the Bulletin of the Historical Metal- and discussionon pp. 157-64). Rich estimates that, between 1851 lurgy Group became, in 1974, Historical Metallurgy, the Journal of and 1976, Malaysia produced4,817,500 tons of tin. the Historical Metallurgy Society (abbreviatedJHMS). The pub- 7 The discovery of Chinese silk in an early 6th c. B.C. grave near lication history is slightly complicated in that early issues of the the Heuneburg fort in South Germany is hardly sufficientevidence 275 AmericanJournal of Archaeology89 (1985) This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Tue, 03 Nov 2015 18:02:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 276 JAMES D. MUHLY [AJA 89 PENINSULAA I LAOEA-A-LIA TRA~SBAIKAL MA SA C % ERZGEIRGE CHANG NEWRunswC c NAssI CENTRAL-SRITANS ZTL A I MARITIME TSERREITORALR ASA SOUTTHERN C MEXICO [ IH 0o0soXEASTASI RHONOONIAA 0 RHO fAL AFRICA RNO CtE fHTR OIVA CO O .? RHOESI I i PIBAR KANGAROO RE N SOUTHWEST AFRICA / INHILLS SUSDBROKEN ,NEWAD SL SWAZILAND GREENUSHESAN AROLETHANALBURY I IMPORTANT TSAI NSTANIFEROUS AREAS "' •" x MINOR OCCURRANCE , 0o Ill. 1. Stanniferousareas of the world. (From R.G. Taylor, Geologyof Tin Deposits [Amsterdam1979] 6, fig. 2.1) The tin resources of the Mediterranean world, as This passage, one of the most famous for the study of known from modern geological survey, are insignifi- ancient geography,9 clearly shows that Herodotus, cant in terms of modern economic geology.8 Whether who seems to have devotedsome effort to working out or not they were of any importance in antiquity is one the problem, was unable to learn anything regarding of the main topics discussed here. It is important to the sources of tin being consumed in Periclean keep in mind that, writing in the mid-fifth century Athens. The best he could come up with were vague B.C., Herodotus summed up his investigations into stories regarding the mysterious Tin Islands (Kassi- this problem by stating that: terides), about whose very existence Herodotus ob- Of the extreme tracts of Europe towards the west I viously had his doubts.10 The only certainty in the cannot speak with any certainty; for I do not allow that matter was the relationship between tin and amber, there is any river to which the barbarians give the both said to come from the "ends of the earth" (• name of Eridanus, emptying itself into the northern The significanceof this connectionis dis- sea, whence (as the tale goes) amber is procured; nor do cussed•joXaT7r)7). below. I know of islands called the Tin Islands, whence any We are dealing here with a period of history-the the tin comes which we use. For in the first place the fifth century B.C.-about which we know a great name Eridanus is manifestly not a barbarian word at deal, far more than ever will be known about the all, but a Greek name, invented by some poet or other; and secondly, though I have taken great pains, I have Bronze Age world. Periclean Athens was importing never been able to get an eye-witness that there is any large amounts of tin.