“In any case... Ling thinks... that Cypriot copper was not massively and purposefully imported... but trickled along the Bronze Age trade routes.”
And now the archaeologists think they have recognized images of the ships that brought the copper north. Thousands of elaborate rock carvings dating to the Bronze Age have been found in Scandinavia, mostly in the region of Bohuslän, on the Swedish west coast. A recurring motif on the rock carvings is ships and intriguingly, most of these ship carving sites also have images that resemble Mediterranean oxhide ingots. Thousands of images attest to a massive direct presence over a sustained time. Kaul Flemming, a researcher from the Danish national museum who studies beads in Danish Bronze Age burials, is convinced that there was a cultural transfer between the Aegean and Scandinavia. The motifs from the Kivik grave may well been taken from Mycenean Greece, he tells Haaretz, adding, The chariots, the light two-wheeled cart, can also be seen on the Mycenaean grave steles. A cultural transfer denoted direct and sustained contact and not a trickle of trade done with localized, what I call "fire bucket brigade" like transfers of trade goods between local middle men who did not travel far.
And now the archaeologists think they have recognized images of the ships that brought the copper north. Thousands of elaborate rock carvings dating to the Bronze Age have been found in Scandinavia, mostly in the region of Bohuslän, on the Swedish west coast. A recurring motif on the rock carvings is ships and intriguingly, most of these ship carving sites also have images that resemble Mediterranean oxhide ingots.
Thousands of images attest to a massive direct presence over a sustained time.
Kaul Flemming, a researcher from the Danish national museum who studies beads in Danish Bronze Age burials, is convinced that there was a cultural transfer between the Aegean and Scandinavia. The motifs from the Kivik grave may well been taken from Mycenean Greece, he tells Haaretz, adding, The chariots, the light two-wheeled cart, can also be seen on the Mycenaean grave steles.
A cultural transfer denoted direct and sustained contact and not a trickle of trade done with localized, what I call "fire bucket brigade" like transfers of trade goods between local middle men who did not travel far.