King Solomon’s Silver? Southern Phoenician Hacksilber Hoards and the Location of Tarshish

Thompson, Christine Marmé; Skaggs, Sheldon

doi:10.11141/ia.35.6

Cited by 17 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…better) detection limits than ED-XRF. In other words, in agreement with Thompson and Skaggs' (2013) traditional LIA plots, which showed that some of the sampled silver from Miqne-Ekron was consistent with the ores of Laurion, Fig. 4 indicates that Miqne-Ekron had access to silver from Laurion in the seventh century BC.…”

Section: Mixing Linessupporting

confidence: 80%

“…The basic argument was that Philistine sites such as Ashkelon, and Phoenician sites such as Tell Keisan and Tel Dor, although not in Phoenicia proper (Gilboa 2013), had silver that was isotopically consistent with the west Mediterranean. More recently, Thompson and Skaggs (2013) used LIA data from 25 of the sampled artefacts (from Akko, Ein Hofez, Tel Dor and Tell Keisan) to show that they are consistent with ores of the central and western Mediterranean, and are inconsistent with the ore deposits of Anatolia (Taurus) and the Aegean (Laurion). Relating this evidence to ancient documents, which suggest that the land of Tarshish was the source of King Solomon's silver, these authors proposed a location for Tarshish in Iberia or Sardinia as part of a transient, pre-colonial Phoenician metals trade.…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, only some of the silver samples in the hoards analysed seems to have this west Mediterranean isotopic signature, raising the question of where the rest of the silver came from. Nevertheless, Thompson and Skaggs' (2013) method of iteratively matching isotopic signatures of the silver in the hoards to a selection of (predominantly lead) ores from the western Mediterranean strongly suggests that silver from the west Mediterranean was being brought to the southern Levant in the Early Iron Age.…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, from LIA, the silver used to make the objects in the hoards from Bet Shean indicates an Anatolian or, to a lesser degree, a Laurion ore source (Thompson 2009), but the gold content of this silver (up to 3% Au) is in excess of that found in silver from these areas. Thompson and Skaggs (2013), discussing silver found in the hoards, emphasise that the high levels of gold (mean = 1.8% Au, max = 35% Au) in some samples are not well understood.…”

Section: Reanalysis Of Legacy Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3) and it is therefore potentially from another argentiferous deposit. Again, the Taurus mountains in Anatolia could be a candidate as the crustal ages range from −130 Ma to 172 Ma (calculated from Oxalid data, 2018), although Thompson and Skaggs (2013) discounted an Anatolian source for the hoard silver from the Tel Dor. From LIAs of ores around the Aegean (Oxalid 2018), only Thera (−51 Ma to −99 Ma) and Kythnos (−28 Ma to −61 Ma) appear to have silver-bearing ores (Gale and Stos-Gale 1981a) and Pb crustal ages commensurate with this mixing line.…”

Section: Mixing Linesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Iberia to the Southern Levant: The Movement of Silver Across the Mediterranean in the Early Iron Age

2019

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The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates not only that recycling of silver was widespread in the Early and Late Iron Age, but that the components of this mixed silver originated from the Aegean, Anatolia and the western Mediterranean. An assessment of lead isotope analyses combined with compositional data allows the identification of mixing lines based on gold levels in the silver and the Pb crustal age (or, more loosely, geological age) of the ore from which the silver originated. It is shown that, from as early as the 11th century BC, these mixed silver signatures derive from the Taurus mountains in Anatolia, from Iberia and an unknown source-with Sardinia as an additional possibility-and Laurion in Greece in the Late Iron Age. In contrast to copper, which was deliberately alloyed with silver, gold appears to have been mixed unintentionally, through the melting down of silver objects with gold parts. It is suggested that vertical mixing lines (with constant Pb crustal age but variable Au), may indicate the melting down and mixing of silver in times of unrest, both here and in other contexts. Gold and lead concentrations in the silver indicate that native silver from Iberia was most likely used in the Early Iron Age, suggesting that the first people to convey silver to the southern Levant were not miners but traders who had acquired silver directly from the indigenous Bronze Age inhabitants of Iberia. However, evidence of the exploitation of jarosite also supports that silver ore mining and cupellation was ongoing in Iberia at a similar time, and continued in the Late Iron Agepotentially a result of technological transfer from the East. In essence, the western Mediterranean origin of the silver in these Early Iron Age southern Levantine hoards supports an emerging picture of Mediterranean interactions and trade relations in the increasingly bright Dark Ages (c. 1200-800 BC).

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Section: Mixing Linessupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reanalysis Of Legacy Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mixing Linesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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