Posted on 08/06/2011 4:11:06 PM PDT by Renfield
The Shipping of Michigan Copper across the Atlantic in the Bronze Age (Isle Royale and Keweenaw Peninsula, c. 2400BC-1200 BC)
Summary
Recent scientific literature has come to the conclusion that the major source of the copper that swept through the European Bronze Age after 2500 BC is unknown. However, these studies claim that the 10 tons of copper oxhide ingots recovered from the late Bronze Age (1300 BC) Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of Turkey was extraordinarily pure (more than 99.5% pure), and that it was not the product of smelting from ore. The oxhides are all brittle blister copper, with voids, slag bits, and oxides, created when the oxhides were made in multiple pourings outdoors over wood fires. Only Michigan Copper is of this purity, and it is known to have been mined in enormous quantities during the Bronze Age....
(Excerpt) Read more at grahamhancock.com ...
I saw that map with those yellow, Finnish areas of Michigan. You thought you could hide them from me, but noooooo. I spied that little sliver of yellow isle up there. You and your 386” of snow in the UP.
Who needs copper? /s Y’all need to send that snow to Texas.
Michigan and Ohio really did almost go to war over swamp land by Toledo.
Hard to imagine, I know.
The Big 10 rivalry carries on that history, me thinks.
“I say we split this government and create our own.”
I’m familiar with what you’re saying. There have been a number of movements to split the UP away from lower Michigan going back to 1910.
Calumet, during its mining heyday, came very close to being named the new capital of Michigan.
Imagine the fat-ass politicians freezing their butts off in Calumet, under 250 inches of Lake Superior every winter. LOL!
I wandered into Michigan for no particular reason in 1977 after I left the military and discovered the KLA, the Keweenaw Liberation Front, at a Calumet bar called the Grey Hackle. A bunch of vets made it up just to piss off the jack-offs in Washington. I met a number of vets who are still my friends today.
The paranoid feds sent up a bunch of 50 IQ FBI stupidos to check it out. These bozo FBI morons took it seriously.
Long story short - the FBI still won’t admit that they’re fools who were fooled.
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GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
Thanks Renfield. |
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That’s a great idea!
Not ‘melted’, but dissolved!
Acid, or some other chemical of a sort that could dissolve the copper, liquify it and just pump it out like oil!..........
My great great grandparents came to Michigan from Cornwall, England and Germany to lead the copper mine crews in Houghton/Hancock. Still have kin up there with the same last names. Hoping to make it up there next year for the first time ever and explore my ancestry.
I'm thinking pickled eggs in big glass jars...with crackers
“Did they find any prehistoric pastys?”
Madonna’s been stripping in Michigan?
I see the potential for an interesting trade flow. Copper from America, stop in Cornwall and/or Wales. Trade some copper for tin, and go home to Mediterranean and make bronze.
Sisu. You need Sisu. Sorry I left you out there dave. Went to bed as I am now just up getting my shit together for work. Its 4:35AM and I am LATE! Got to get out and put down 60 cords of wood.
Had a funeral to go to Thursday so this is my make up day. Was gonna do it yesterday but to hot. One of my cousins died. He was a fighter pilot trainer during WW2.
I got a story like that that happened to us when I lived in Munising. We call the town SingSing. Once your there you just cant get out no matter how hard you try.
Later...the machine is waiting.
I was a UPer (Yooper?) for eight years. Thanks for posting this. I must show this to my husband, who also is an ancient coin collector.
You know, ONE of the best things about FR; it feels like you’re sitting around a table listening to old friends’ stories...
I know NOTHING about the rich history you all are so obviously steeped in. What an education.
Thanks dave. Thanks ALL.
I don't mean to be flippant, but they ought to get these guys gold mining in Alaska from the show "Gold Rush" up to the UP to bring some visibility to it.
I don't know something from Shinola, but my gut tells me where their is salt ( under Detroit ) other minerals are not far behind, Ergo their is oil under Lake Michigan, the whole State maybe under Shale Gas, and the UP may have all these rare metals.
Granholm didn't do a ******* thing to make any of these things happen to put people to work and potentially fill the state coffers...
And Nerd boy is on my "S-List" because he ain't far behind her, not a word about going after these G-d given riches that could help us out of the fiscal mess we are in....
I got to tell ya, Nerd boy Snyder is becoming a big dissapointment fast....
Copper: a world trade in 3000 BC?The Menomonie Indians of north Wisconsin possess a legend that speaks about the ancient mines. They described the mines as being worked by "light skinned men", who were able to identify the mines by throwing magical stones on the ground, which made the ores that contained copper ring like a bell. This practice closely resembles a similar practice that was used in Europe during the Bronze Age. Bronze with a high concentration of tin indeed resonates when a stone is thrown against it. The legend might have confused the start of the process with the result of the process. Even so, S.A. Barnett, the first archaeologist who studied Aztalan, a site near the mines, believed that the miners originated from Europe. His conclusion was largely based on the type of tools that had been used, tools which were not used by the local people.
by Philip Coppens
1999
Missing: 500,000 tons of copper
William R. Corliss, Science Frontiers, No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993
A grooved maul used by ancient miners of Michigan copper ore. (S. Braker)
A grooved maul used by ancient miners of Michigan copper ore. (S. Braker) For some 1800 years, beginning abruptly about 3000 BC, some industrious peoples mined ore equivalent to 500,000 tons of copper from Michigan's Isle Royale and Keweenaw Peninsula. Who were these mysterious miners, and what happened to all all that copper? It certainly hasn't been found in the relics of North American Indians. And where was the ore smelted? About all the unidentified miners left behind are some of the crude tools they used to pound out chunks of ore from their pit mines (5000 pit mines on Isle Royale alone). Outside of some cairns and slabrock ruins, there is little to help pin down these miners. Mainstream archeologists attribute all these immense labors to a North American "Copper Culture" -- certainly not to copper-hungry visitors from foreign shores. Admittedly, many copper artifacts have been dug up from North American mounds, but only a tiny fraction of the metal the Michigan mines must have yielded.
Curiously, North American Indian mounds have contained copper sheets made in the shape of an animal hide. Called "reels," their function, if any, is unknown. The reels do, however, resemble oddly shaped copper ingots common in European Bronze Age com merce. Their peculiar shape earned these ingots the name "oxhydes." They have been found in Bronze Age shipwrecks, and are even said to be portrayed in wall paintings in Egyptian tombs. The standardized hide-like shape, with its four convenient handles, was useful in carrying and stacking the heavy ingots. Could the reels from the North American mounds have been copied from the oxhydes? It is tempting to speculate (as we are wont to do) that the Copper Culture miners were actually Europeans, or perhaps Native Americans employed or enslaved by Europeans -- an omen of future, more devastating invasions! (Sodders, Betty; "Who Mined American Copper 5,000 Years Ago?" Ancient American, 1:28, September/October 1993.)
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