Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-2pp2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-29T14:34:11.785Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tracing copper in the Cypro-Minoan script

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Silvia Ferrara  and
Carol Bell
Silvia Ferrara
Affiliation:
Dipartimento Scienze dell'Antichità, Sapienza, University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5 00185, Rome, Italy (Email: silvia.ferrara@uniroma1.it)
Carol Bell
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK (Email: carol.bell@ucl.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Cypro-Minoan script was in regular use on the island of Cyprus, and by Cypriot merchants overseas, during the Late Bronze Age. Although still undeciphered, sign-sequences inscribed on miniature copper ‘oxhide’ ingots and on associated clay labels may hold a clue to their purpose. The ingots were previously interpreted as votive offerings inscribed with dedications. Here, it is suggested instead that these extremely pure copper miniatures were produced as commercial samples, and were marked with a brand denoting their high quality and provenance, such as ‘pure Cypriot copper’.

Keywords

CyprusLate Bronze Agewritingepigraphycopperingot

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 352 , August 2016 , pp. 1009 - 1021
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Amadasi Guzzo, M.G. 2009. Marks on Central Mediterranean copper ingots, in Lo Schiavo, F., Muhly, J.D., Maddin, R. & Giumlia-Mair, A. (ed.) Oxhide ingots in the Central Mediterranean: 431–35. Rome: A.G. Leventis Foundation.Google Scholar
Bass, G.F., Throckmorton, P., Du Plat Taylor, J., Hennessy, J.B., Shulman, A.R. & Buchholz, H.G.. 1967. Cape Gelidonya: a Bronze Age shipwreck. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 57: 1–177. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1005978 Google Scholar
Bell, C. 2006. The evolution of long distance trading relationships across the LBA/Iron Age transition on the northern Levantine coast: crisis, continuity and change (British Archaeological Reports international series 1574). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Bell, C. 2012. The merchants of Ugarit. Oligarchs of the LBA trade in metals?, in Kassianidou, V. & Papasavvas, G. (ed.) Eastern Mediterranean metallurgy and metalwork in the second millennium BC, proceedings of a conference in honour of James D. Muhly, Nicosia 10th–11th October 2009: 180–87. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Bushnell, L. 2013. The socio-economic implications of the distribution of juglets in the Eastern Mediterranean. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Catling, H.W. 1971. A Cypriot bronze statuette in the Bomford Collection, in Schaeffer, C.F.A. (ed.) Alasia I. Publié à l'occasion de la XXe campagne de fouilles à Enkomi-Alasia (1969): 15–32. Paris: Missions archéologiques d'Alasia IV.Google Scholar
Courtois, J.-C. 1982. L'activité métallurgique et les bronzes d'Enkomi au Bronze Récent (1650–1100 avant J.-C.), in Muhly, J., Maddin, R. & Karageorghis, V. (ed.) Early metallurgy in Cyprus 4000–500 BC: 156–75. Nicosia: Pierides Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities Republic of Cyprus.Google Scholar
Dikaios, P. 1971. Enkomi: excavations, 1948–1958, volume II. Mainz-am-Rhein: von Zabern.Google Scholar
Domergue, C. 1990. Les mines de la Peninsule Iberique dans l'antiquité romaine (Collection de l’École française de Rome 127). Rome: L'École française de Rome.Google Scholar
Duhoux, Y. 2003. Un nom du ‘bronze’ en linéaire A? Cretan Studies 9: 17–26.Google Scholar
Ferrara, S. 2012. Cypro-Minoan inscriptions: analysis. Oxford. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ferrara, S. 2013. Cypro-Minoan inscriptions: corpus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gale, N. 2011. Copper oxhide ingots and lead isotope provenancing, in Betancourt, P. & Ferrence, S. (ed.) Metallurgy: understanding how, learning why: studies in honor of James D. Muhly: 213–19. Philadelphia (PA): INSTAP Academic Press.Google Scholar
Giumlia-Mair, A., Kassianidou, V. & Papasavvas, G.. 2011. Miniature ingots from Cyprus, in Betancourt, P. & Ferrence, S. (ed.) Metallurgy: understanding how, learning why: studies in honor of James D. Muhly: 11–19. Philadelphia (PA): INSTAP Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hirschfeld, N. 1999. Potmarks of the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Hirt, A.M. 2010. Imperial mines and quarries in the Roman World. Organizational aspects 27 BC–AD 235. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572878.001.0001 Google Scholar
Houston, S.D. (ed.). 2004. The first writing. Script invention as history and process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kaiser, A. 2013. Copper oxhide ingot marks: a database of comparative analysis. Unpublished MA dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Karageorghis, V. & Kanta, A.. 2014. Pyla-Kokkinokremos. A late 13th century fortified settlement in Cyprus. Excavations 2010–2011. Uppsala: Astrom.Google Scholar
Karageorghis, V. & Masson, E.. 1971. Un bronze votif inscrit (modèle de foie ou de rein?) trouvé à Kition en 1970. Studi Ciprioti e Rapporti di Scavo 1: 237–47.Google Scholar
Kassianidou, V. 2003. The trade of tin and the island of copper, in Giumlia-Mair, A. and Schiavo, F. Lo (ed.) The problem of early tin. Acts of the XIV UISPP Congress. Liège 2–8 September 2001 (British Archaeological Reports international series 1199): 109–19. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Kassianidou, V. 2009. Oxhide ingots in Cyprus, in Lo Schiavo, F., Muhly, J.D., Maddin, R. & Giumlia-Mair, A. (ed.) Oxhide ingots in the Central Mediterranean: 41–81. Rome: A.G. Leventis Foundation.Google Scholar
Kassianidou, V. 2013. The production and trade of Cypriot copper in the Late Bronze Age. An analysis of the evidence. Pasiphae 7: 133–46.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B. 1986. Copper production and divine protection: archaeology, ideology and social complexity on Bronze Age Cyprus. Gothenberg: Astrom.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B. 1996. Near Eastern and Aegean texts from the third to the first millennia BC (Sources for the History of Cyprus 2). Altamont (NY): Greece/Cyprus Research Center.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B. & Kassianidou, V.. 2008. The archaeology of Late Bronze Age copper production: Politiko Phorades on Cyprus, in Yalçin, Ü. (ed.) Anatolian metal IV: Frühe Rohstoffgewinnung in Anatolien und seinen Nachbarländern. Der Anschnitt (Veröffentlichungen aus dem Deutschen Bergbau-Museum 157): 135–47. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.B., Kassianidou, V. & Donnelly, M.. 2001. Copper smelting in Late Bronze Age Cyprus: the excavations at Politiko Phorades. Near Eastern Archaeology 64 (4): 204–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3210830 Google Scholar
Mallory, J.P. & Adams, D.Q.. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn.Google Scholar
Masson, E. 1974. Cyprominoica. Répertoires. Documents de Ras Shamra. Essais d'interpretation (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 31.2). Gothenberg: Astrom. Google Scholar
Masson, O. 1971. Deux petits lingots de cuivre inscrits d'Enkomi (1953), in Schaeffer, C.F.A. (ed.) Alasia I. Publié à l'occasion de la XXe campagne de fouilles à Enkomi-Alasia (1969): 449–55. Paris: Missions archéologiques d'Alasia IV.Google Scholar
Moorey, P.R.S. 1994. Ancient Mesopotamian material and industries: the archaeological evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Muhly, J. 2009. Oxhide ingots in the Aegean and in Egypt, in Lo Schiavo, F., Muhly, J.D., Maddin, R. & Giumlia-Mair, A. (ed.) Oxhide ingots in the Central Mediterranean: 17–39. Rome: A.G. Leventis Foundation.Google Scholar
Olivier, J.P. 2007. Edition holistique des textes chypro-minoens. Pisa-Roma: Fabrizio Serra.Google Scholar
Papasavvas, G. 2009. The iconography of the oxhide ingots, in Lo Schiavo, F., Muhly, J.D., Maddin, R. & Giumlia-Mair, A. (ed.) Oxhide ingots in the Central Mediterranean: 83–132. Rome: A.G. Leventis Foundation.Google Scholar
Pernicka, E. 2014. Provenance determination of archaeological metal objects, in Roberts, B.W. & Thornton, C. (ed.) Archaeometallurgy in global perspective: methods and syntheses: 239–68. New York: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9017-3_11 Google Scholar
Smith, J.S. 2002. Problems and prospects in the study of script and seal use on Cyprus in the Bronze and Iron Ages, in Smith, J.S. (ed.) Script and seal use on Cyprus in the Bronze and Iron Ages: 1–47. Boston (MA): Archaeological Institute of America.Google Scholar
Stech, T. 1982. Urban metallurgy in Late Bronze Age Cyprus, in Muhly, J., Maddin, R. & Karageorghis, V. (ed.) Early metallurgy in Cyprus 4000–500 BC: 105–17. Nicosia: Pierides Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities Republic of Cyprus.Google Scholar
Steele, P. 2014. The mystery of the ancient Cypriot clay balls. British Academy Review 24: 60–63.Google Scholar
van Soldt, W.H. 1990. Labels from Ugarit. Ugarit Forschungen 21: 375–88.Google Scholar
van Soldt, W.H. 2000. Private archives at Ugarit, in Bongenaar, A.C.V.M. (ed.) Interdependency of institutions and private entrepreneurs. Proceedings of the Second Mos Symposium: 229–45. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul.Google Scholar
Webb, J.M. 1999. Ritual architecture, iconography and practice in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Gothenberg: Astrom.Google Scholar
Wengrow, D. 2008. Prehistories of commodity branding. Current Anthropology 49: 7–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/523676 Google Scholar
Yon, M. 1999. Chypre et Ougarit à la fin du Bronze Récent. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus: 113–18.Google Scholar
Zaccagnini, C. 1971. La terminologia accadica del rame e del bronzo nel I millennio. Oriens Antiquus 10: 123–44.Google Scholar