Re: [TIED] Re: The Tin Islands.

----- Original Message -----

From: John Croft

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 8:00 AM

Subject: [TIED] Re: The Tin Islands.

John,

 

I've done some checking on early tin trade. It seems that the Cornish tin deposits were almost unknown (except on a local scale) during the Bronze Age. Bronze-making in continental Europe was dependent on tin ores found in Erzgebirge, western Europe and (in small amounts) in Etruria. Cornish tin was discovered by Phoenicians from Carthage or Gadir (Gades, Cadiz), who reached the Scillies and Cornwall by an open-sea route from north-west Spain. That was also the route taken by Pytheas, who (according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary) sailed from Gades, past Cape Ortegal, the Loire, NW France and Uxisame (Ushant), visited the tin mines at Belerium (Land's End) and the tin depot at Ictis (St. Michael's Mount; there were presumably similar depots in the Scillies), before circumnavigating Britain.

 

The land route you describe was established in the 3rd c. BC by the Massiliots, and became THEIR jealously guarded secret. It was only ca. 95 BC that a Roman administrator (governor?) in Spain, one C. Crassus, made the tin routes generally known. After the Roman conquest of Britain the Cornish mines, operated by the natives, continued to produce tin for Rome until the discovery of superior deposits in Spain.

 

Piotr

 

John wrote:

Another "Tin Road" ran from the Scilly Isles to Amorica, south to
Burdigala, up along the Garonne and across to Marsala (Marseilles)
and thence East across the Mediterranean.  This was certainly the
route that Pytheas took on his travels.  This seems to be the route
taken by Egyptian faience beads from the eastern Mediterranean to the
Salisbury plain and points west and north, during the so
called "Bronze Age".