Late Bronze Age Metal Exploitation and Trade: Sardinia and Cyprus

Abstract

Since the 1980s, extensive archeological studies have provided us with knowledge about the multifaceted relations between Nuragic Sardinia and Bronze Age Cyprus. During the winter of 2019, Nuragic tableware of Sardinian origin was discovered at the harbor site of Hala Sultan Tekke, on the southeastern coast of Cyprus, providing the opportunity to return to the question of the reasons behind this presence. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the characteristics and role of Sardinian maritime "enterprises" in the long-distance metal trade in the Mediterranean and beyond, including continental Europe. An array of new provenance studies demonstrates the complexity of the Bronze Age metal trade and, taking a maritime perspective, provides the opportunity to reveal how strategically positioned actors such as Nuragic Sardinia managed to dominate sea-borne routes, and gained a prominent and independent international position.

Through 40,000 years of human presence in Southern Europe: the Italian case study

“…During the Middle Bronze Age, about 3550 ya, archaeological evidence showed the appearance of the Nuragic culture, named after the Sardinian most characteristic stone towers called nuraghi . Despite the absence of the Iranian-related ancestry until the Iron Age, this period was characterized by the intensification of trades and cultural exchanges bridging together the lands facing the Mediterranean, as testified, for instance, by the arrival of copper goods from Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age Sardinia (Sabatini and Lo Schiavo 2020 ) and the presence on the island of Mycenaean, Levantine and Cypriot traders. Nevertheless, evidence of gene flows altering the genetic continuity did not appear until after the Nuragic period (Marcus et al 2020 ).…”

Functional diversity of microbial ecologies estimated from ancient human coprolites and dental calculus

“…Host genetics may play a role, as Nuragic Sardinians had very low genetic diversity [107] and host genetics does have an impact on the makeup of the human oral microbiome [108]; however, we did not analyse human genetics in our study and therefore we cannot provide further resolution for this idea. The unique oral microbiome in Nuragic Sardinians could also result from extensive use of copper mined from the island during the Bronze Age [109,110]. Copper has antimicrobial properties [111] and copper oxide, which is a product of heating copper [112] and has been found in Sardinian Bronze Age artefacts [113], is antimicrobial and has been shown to inhibit oral biofilm formation [114].…”

Cyprus, Sardinia and Sicily: A Maritime Perspective on Interaction, Connectivity and Imagination in Mediterranean Prehistory

“…(Tanasi 2020a, 197) • 'the largest number of [oxhide ingot] finds is from Sardinia, suggesting not only a special relationship between Cyprus and Sardinia, but also an intriguing role for Sardinian maritime "enterprises" in the Mediterranean metal trade'. (Sabatini & Lo Schiavo 2020, 1509 The authors of these studies are not unaware of other proposals to explain interaction between LBA Cyprus or the Aegean with the central Mediterranean (e.g. Blake 2008;2014, 66-112;Russell 2017;Russell & Knapp 2017).…”

“…Gradoli et al 2020, 13;Tanasi 2020a, 195). Sabatini andLo Schiavo (2020, 1501, emphasis added) have little to say about other views, although they introduce the issue of a 'maritime perspective', or at least how 'strategically positioned actors such as Nuragic Sardinia managed to dominate sea routes':…”