Andrew Shortland

I don’t normally like article collections like this but sometimes that’s the best you can do. Most of the papers concern two technological advances at the end of the Bronze Age: glass and iron. At the time, you couldn’t get a fire hot enough to fuse quartz directly, but somewhere along the line it was discovered that if powdered quartz was mixed with ashes (as a source of sodium and potassium carbonates), the melting point was reduced to within the range accessible temperatures. There was no glass-blowing yet; glass vessels were made by drawing hot glass into strands and wrapping them around a core. I was interested to find there was a considerable trade in glass “ingots”, standardized glass shapes with trace elements that made them brightly colored (deep red, blue, and purple were popular). These would be shipped to places that lacked these exotic colors and remelted for use in local glass.

Another interesting paper discusses the value of iron, and the possibility of iron roasting spits used as “coinage” in Greece. The author concludes that in the late Bronze Age a single iron dagger was sufficiently valuable to be an appropriate gift from the Hittite King Hattusilis III to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser I; an earlier reference (during the Old Assyrian Period, perhaps Middle Bronze Age) suggests iron was about 90 times as valuable as silver and about 10 times as valuable as gold (although the author doesn’t suggest it, I presume this is meteoritic iron rather than smelted iron). The exchange rate dropped precipitously, presumable as iron smelting developed, so that a century or so into the Iron Age, silver was 240 to 360 times as valuable as iron (although it’s noted that there were considerable quality variations). It’s been suggested that the development of iron armor and weapons brought about the controversial “collapse of civilization” at the end of the Bronze; while only the elite and wealthy could afford bronze weapons and armor, every Tom, Dick, and Harry could have an iron sword and an iron helmet.

This paper also discusses iron roasting spits. It’s been suggested (see, for example, A History of Sparta) that these were a sort of coinage, based on their discovery in wealthy tombs; however, here it’s suggested that while possession of such spits in abundance was a sign of wealth, they didn’t have any sort of a standard exchange value.

These are just the papers I found particularly interesting; there are fourteen altogether so others might be more relevant to people with different archaeological interests. Each paper has its own set of references. Illustrations and maps in some if relevant.… (altro)