scholarly journals The Earliest Balance Weights in the West: Towards an Independent Metrology for Bronze Age Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Ialongo

Weighing devices are the earliest material correlates of the rational quantification of economic value, and they yield great potential in the study of trade in pre-literate societies. However, the knowledge of European Bronze Age metrology is still underdeveloped in comparison to Eastern Mediterranean regions, mostly due to the lack of a proper scientific debate. This paper introduces a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of standard weight-systems in pre-literate societies, and tests it on a large sample of potential balance weights distributed between Southern Italy and Central Europe during the Bronze Age (second–early first millenniumbc). A set of experimental expectations is defined on the basis of comparisons with ancient texts, archaeological cases and modern behaviour. Concurrent typological, use-wear, statistical and contextual analyses allow to cross-check the evidence against the expectations, and to validate the balance-weight hypothesis for the sample under analysis. The paper urges a reappraisal of an independent weight metrology for Bronze Age Europe, based on adequate methodologies and a critical perspective.

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-210
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Lis ◽  
Trevor Van Damme

While handwashing is attested in the Bronze Age cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and appears in both Linear B records and Homeric epics, the custom has not been discussed with regard to the material culture of Mycenaean Greece. On analogy with Egyptian handwashing equipment, we explore the possibility that a conical bowl made of bronze and copied in clay was introduced in Greece early in the Late Bronze Age for this specific use. We integrate epigraphic, iconographic and formal analyses to support this claim, but in order to interrogate the quotidian function of ceramic lekanes, we present the results of use-wear analysis performed on 130 examples. As use-wear develops from repeated use over a long time, it is a good indicator of normative behaviour, particularly when large datasets are amassed and contrasted with other shapes. While not conclusive, our results allow us to rule out a function as tableware for food consumption, and in combination with all other analyses support the interpretation of lekanes as handwashing basins. We then trace the development of this custom from its initial adoption by elite groups to its spread among new social classes and venues after the collapse of the palace system: at home, as part of communal feasting and sacrifice or as an element of funerary rites. The widespread distribution of handwashing equipment after 1200 bc closely mirrors the situation in our earliest surviving Greek Iron Age texts and joins a growing body of evidence pointing to strong continuity in social practices between the Postpalatial period and the early Iron Age in Greece.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vinko Kerr-Harris

<p>The development of Minoan society has traditionally been considered by scholars to have been an insular phenomenon unique to the southern Aegean. Such assumptions, however, fail to acknowledge the wider context of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean. Contact between the people of Crete and their contemporaries in Egypt and the Levant is well attested in the archaeological record, with a plethora of artefacts – imported and imitation – appearing on both sides of the Libyan Sea. Whilst investigations into the economic nature of these exchanges have been undertaken, little thought has been given to the cultural consequences of inter-regional contacts. This thesis examines the evolution of palatial society upon Crete and considers the extent to which interactions with comparatively more mature civilisations may have influenced the increasingly hierarchal trajectory of Minoan society, by re-evaluating the corpus of material culture and interconnectivity.</p>


Antiquity ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (362) ◽  
pp. 534-537
Author(s):  
David A. Warburton

These volumes treat economic and social themes of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean; all touch on Egypt, but the volume on Egypt itself limps way behind in both quality and scope. Taking these three volumes together, one has the impression that the unresolved problems of the last five decades of turmoil in archaeological thought have left not merely unhealed scars, but also badly set broken bones.


Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (343) ◽  
pp. 210-212
Author(s):  
Flemming Kaul

In the above paper by Johan Ling and Zofia Stos-Gale, an object seen in a number of Swedish rock paintings and carvings is understood to be a representation of the so-called oxhide shaped ingot of the eastern Mediterranean Minoan-Mycenaean Bronze Age culture.


2007 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 141-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.N. Postgate

AbstractStarting from Kilise Tepe in the Göksu valley north of Silifke two phenomena in pre-Classical Anatolian ceramics are examined. One is the appearance at the end of the Bronze Age, or beginning of the Iron Age, of hand-made, often crude, wares decorated with red painted patterns. This is also attested in different forms at Boğazköy, and as far east as Tille on the Euphrates. In both cases it has been suggested that it may reflect the re-assertion of earlier traditions, and other instances of re-emergent ceramic styles are found at the end of the Bronze Age, both elsewhere in Anatolia and in Thessaly. The other phenomenon is the occurrence of ceramic repertoires which seem to coincide precisely with the frontiers of a polity. In Anatolia this is best recognised in the case of the later Hittite Empire. The salient characteristics of ‘Hittite’ shapes are standardised, from Boğazköy at the centre to Gordion in the west and Korucu Tepe in the east. This is often tacitly associated with Hittite political control, but how and why some kind of standardisation prevails has not often been addressed explicitly. Yet this is a recurring phenomenon, and in first millennium Anatolia similar standardised wares have been associated with both the Phrygian and the Urartian kingdoms. This paper suggests that we should associate it directly with the administrative practices of the regimes in question.


Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (343) ◽  
pp. 221-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Ling ◽  
Zofia Stos-Gale

It is rare for authors to be able to read comments on their paper by leading colleagues and to have the chance to respond before its publication. We would like to thank the editor of Antiquity for providing this opportunity. The comments express both acceptance of, and doubts about, interconnectedness between the eastern Mediterranean and Scandinavia in the Bronze Age. Kaul's comments demonstrate a deep insight into how Nordic archaeology reveals this interconnectedness; that is clearly expressed in his latest publication on the topic in Antiquity (Kaul 2013). Moreover, both Kaul and Sognnes, who accept these interconnections, have an excellent understanding of Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art. In fact, most of the reviewers’ comments express a positive attitude to the interpretation of the rock art images as possible representations of oxhide ingots.


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