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To: SunkenCiv
I wonder if a similar approach would be fruitful to track the source of tin used to make ancient bronze over the centuries?

Perhaps, but it might be more difficult because bronze is an alloy, while silver is pure except for the few unintentional impurities which the study is tracking. If you are tracking impurities in bronze, you would need to demonstrate that those impurities would occur in unique amounts in the alloy from a given geographical area for a given composition of the alloy. That might be more of a challenge because, although bronze is mostly copper and tin, it can also contain other metals.

14 posted on 03/09/2019 8:55:08 PM PST by Rocky
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To: Rocky

Wow, a lot here:

Bronze Age Interactions: The Tin Trade
https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/09/30/bronze-age-interactions-the-tin-trade/
http://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/files/2017/09/spread-of-bronze-and-location-of-tin-deposits.png

[snip] archaeologists are able to cross-reference the trace elements found in artifacts with naturally occurring concentrations across the world. For example, at shipwreck near Haifa, present-day Israel, numerous tin ingots, with Minoan symbols indicating ingots are from the bronze age, had trace elements of cobalt. Archaeologists must now find a source of tin with similar traces of Cobalt to determine the origin. Yet, they have failed to find an exact match, the closest being Cornwall, present-day England, which has concentrations of cobalt and germanium. [/snip]

Bronze Age tin ingot finds and prehistoric tin sources in Europe and the Mediterranean
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bronze-Age-tin-ingot-finds-and-prehistoric-tin-sources-in-Europe-and-the-Mediterranean-1_fig3_268081542
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ebbe_Nielsen/publication/268081542/figure/fig3/AS:392040874561545@1470481236684/Bronze-Age-tin-ingot-finds-and-prehistoric-tin-sources-in-Europe-and-the-Mediterranean-1.png

[snip] Bronze Age tin ingot finds and prehistoric tin sources in Europe and the Mediterranean: 1 Sursee-Gammainseli. – 2 Salcombe and Erme Estuary. – 3 Uluburun. – 4 Cape Geledonya. – 5 Haifa. – 6 Cornwall. – 7 Erzgebirge. – 8 Brittany. – 9 central France. – 10 Iberian tin belt. – 11 Tuscany. – 12 Kestel. – (Map C. Jäggi). [/snip]

Bronze Age source of tin discovered [1994]
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/940106/tin.shtml

[snip] The site of the mine, Kestel, is about 60 miles north of Tarsus. Yener’s work at the mine and at nearby Goltepe, an ancient miners’ village, provides new insights into the development of the tin industry. Perhaps most important is her discovery that tin can be smelted in crucibles at relatively low temperatures, a finding that may change established theories about economic and metallurgical developments in the Bronze Age Mediterranean world. [/snip]

Enduring Mystery Solved as Tin Is Found in Turkey
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/04/science/enduring-mystery-solved-as-tin-is-found-in-turkey.html

[snip] The mine, at a site called Kestel, has narrow passages running more than a mile into the mountainside, with others still blocked and unexplored. The archeologists found only low-grade tin ore, presumably the remains of richer deposits that had been mined out. For this reason, Dr. James D. Muhly, a professor of ancient Middle Eastern history at the University of Pennsylvania, said he was skeptical of interpretations that Kestel was a tin mine. [/snip]


15 posted on 03/10/2019 12:42:11 AM PST by SunkenCiv (and btw -- https://www.gofundme.com/for-rotator-cuff-repair-surgery)
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