Kastro Palaia settlement, Volos, Greece: a diachronical technological approach to bronze metalwork

Asderaki-Tzoumerkioti, E; Skafida, Eu.; Vaxevanopoulos, Markos; Connolly, Peter J.

doi:10.1080/20548923.2018.1427182

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Third is the numerous Pb isotope results from analysis of silver, lead and copper artefacts found on mainland Greece and the Aegean islands. These results extend from the Final Neolithic Ag and Cu artefacts discovered in the Alepotrypa cave (Stos‐Gale & Gale, 2009) through the Ag, Cu and Pb artefacts of the Bronze Age (Asderaki‐Tzoumerkioti et al, 2017; Stos‐Gale & Gale, 2009; Kayafa, 2020). They are far too numerous to ignore in any assessment of the mining history of the Lavrion district (Ross & Kayafa, forthcoming).…”

Section: Archaeological Implicationssupporting

confidence: 67%

The Lavrion silver district: Reassessing its ancient mining history

et al. 2021

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Lavrion was an important silver mining district in the ancient world, exploited almost continuously from the fourth millennium BC. Its mining history is central to understanding the availability of silver, lead and copper in Greece and the Aegean through the Bronze age. This history is also relevant to the phenomenal rise of Athens in the 5th century BC. Our reassessment of the mineralisation and ancient mining history at Lavrion provides a clearer understanding of its capacity to generate wealth and the scale of its impact on Athens. Integration of new geochemical and geological data with existing information has produced outcomes that help address these two issues. Foremost is the contrasting character of mineralisation at the upper 'first' and lower 'third' contacts and their marked differences in silver content, spatial distribution and supergene alteration. Discovery of the concealed, bonanza mineralisation of the third contact at Kamariza, possibly early in the 5th century BC, followed about 3000 years of mining, which appears to have been largely restricted to discontinuous, low‐grade mineralisation at the first contact. Undoubtedly, this later discovery had enduring impacts on Lavrion and Athens, and it most likely funded the trireme fleet, which brought victory over the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC.

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Section: Archaeological Implicationssupporting

confidence: 67%

The Lavrion silver district: Reassessing its ancient mining history

et al. 2021

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“…This, in turn, is likely to have involved a significant degree of craft specialisation. While at present we have no direct evidence for this, the scale of production, the number of persons involved, and the expertise gained from the repetition of procedures argue for the presence of skilled craftsmen at Lapithos (see [99] (p. 2), [144]). Metalworking (and weaponry) is also indicated at Vasilia in the Philia EC in the form of the hoards, and possibly also at Vounous in EC I-II, as noted above.…”

Section: Ovgosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…9), [84] (Table 11, 1957.23, 24) (but see [15] (p. 112) for a possible Cypriot origin for Vasilia 1957.23). While we need to keep in mind the caveats relating to LIA-notably the periodic overturning of attributions in the light of new data (see e.g., [98] and [99] (p. 10, Figure 10)-if supported by future analyses, this may require us to consider the possibility that the north coast was receiving the majority of its copper from external sources in the Philia EC period (and/or that incoming groups brought quantities of raw metal or/and artefacts with them).…”

Section: The Question Of Importsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifting Centres: Site Location and Resource Procurement on the North Coast of Cyprus over the Longue Durée of the Prehistoric Bronze Age

Webb

2018

Land

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This paper examines the relationship between site location, resource procurement, and political economy in the context of three localised centres of settlement-Vasilia, Vounous, and Lapithos-which succeeded each other in the narrow, naturally bounded north coastal strip of Cyprus during the approximately 750 years of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2450-1700 BC). Cyprus is home to abundant copper sulphide ores and was linked to the international metal trade in the first phase of the Early Bronze Age and again in the Middle Bronze Age. In both cases, this was conducted largely, if not exclusively, via outlets on the north coast which lie close to the southern coast of Anatolia and contemporary shipping lanes but some 35-40 km distant from the nearest ore bodies in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains. Mechanisms which allowed north coast sites to overcome internal distance deterrents in order to exploit geostrategic advantages in relation to external trade include a favourable natural environment (rainfall, soils, and harbours), technological advantage, probably coercion (physical and ideological), and an ability to achieve high levels of centrality within communication and transport networks with fluctuating levels of integration and hierarchy.

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“…The Pb isotopic compositions of the 149 galena, cerussite, and anglesite samples from the 27 Ag-bearing mineralizations in Greece investigated here are listed in Table 2. Table 3 lists the relevant literature data (Barnes et al, 1975;Gale and Stos-Gale, 1981a;Wagner and Weisgerber, 1985;Wagner et al, 1986;Kalogeropoulos et al, 1989;Nebel et al, 1991;Frei, 1992;Stos-Gale et al, 1996;Asderaki et al, 2017;OXALID and IGME unpublished data). Comments on the existence of ancient mining activity for each Ag-bearing mineralization based on field investigations and literature also are provided.…”

Section: Lead Isotope Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

New Findings of Ancient Greek Silver Sources

et al. 2021

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Over the last 60 years, much analytical research has sought to determine the ore sources of ancient Greek silver artefacts. Lead isotopic analysis has played a key role in this endeavor. While most studies so far have limited their search to places mentioned in historical sources, the present study takes a different approach by first identifying Ag-bearing ore sources in the Aegean world based on their geological characteristics and then using Pb isotopes to determine whether they were exploited in antiquity. To this end, we have geolocated, sampled, and measured high-precision Pb isotopic compositions of 17 Ag-bearing mineralizations in Greece for which we have evidence of ancient mining activity, and a further 10 exhibiting minor Ag occurrences that may also have been exploited in ancient times. We found that Pb model ages provide better discrimination of ore sources than the more conventional plots of raw Pb isotope data.Our study establishes Lavrion, northeast Chalkidiki, Pangaeon, Thasos, Siphnos, Palaea Kavala, Angistron, and south Euboea as the most important ancient silver mining districts in Greece. Two previously undiscovered ancient mining areas in Pelion and in the Kroussia mountain range are also documented. The latter may be identified with ancient Mount Dysoron, from which King Alexander I of Macedon reportedly extracted the fabulous sum of a talent of silver per day. For the first time, we isotopically differentiate some of the mining districts in Thraco-Macedonia, and show that the mines of Thasos include geologically different silver-bearing ore sources. We further identify the hitherto unrealized importance of Euboean silver mines and demonstrate that they isotopically overlap those of Siphnos, with major implications for our understanding of ancient Greek history.Following this first step which underpins our sample selection, we undertook a broad, highprecision, Pb isotopic survey of the ores found at ancient mining localities in Greece with the expectation that improved state-of-the-art analytical quality would help associate Ag-bearing ores with metal use. The acquired high-precision Pb isotope data were used to calculate 'Pb model ages' using the parameters of Albarède and Juteau (1984) and the equations of Albarède et al. (2012). The advantage of Pb model ages is that they define ore provenance better than conventional two-dimensional plots of unprocessed (raw) Pb isotopic ratios by supplying additional information and clarity. Lead model ages establish the geological age of initial Pb segregation from the crustal source to form the ore precursor. The U/Pb (μ) and Th/U (κ) ratios, also deduced from the measured Pb isotopic abundances of the ores, constitute two additional sensitive parameters characteristic of their crustal source (Albarède et al., 2012;. Lead model ages tend to be distributed in well-defined frequency peaks which represent a useful and strongly visual tool (Milot et al., in press). By contrast, plots of conventional raw Pb isotopic ratios normalized to 204 Pb show stron...

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Kastro Palaia settlement, Volos, Greece: a diachronical technological approach to bronze metalwork

Cited by 7 publications

References 10 publications

The Lavrion silver district: Reassessing its ancient mining history

The Lavrion silver district: Reassessing its ancient mining history

Shifting Centres: Site Location and Resource Procurement on the North Coast of Cyprus over the Longue Durée of the Prehistoric Bronze Age

New Findings of Ancient Greek Silver Sources

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