Piotr wrote
> 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.
Thanks you Piotr, very interesting stuff. I have heard that on lead
content (Cornish Tin has a specific signature), bronze found in
Western Europe long before the Carthaginian hegemony in the Western
Mediterranean-Atlantic, shows evidence of a Cornish source
(unfortunately I cannot remember my source, I'll try to hunt it up).
The sea route from Britanny to Cornwall, up the Irish Sea, to the
Hebrides and across the top of Scotland is a particularly ancient one
dating back to Neolithic times. The spread of Dolmens and Megaliths
from a source in Britanny across the Loire and Dordogne regions, into
the Massif Central, down the Rhone Valley to the Gulf of Lyons, shows
there was movements of religious ideas, burial practices and trade
items along this route from 4,300BCE if not before. Certainly from
2,600 BCE the distribution of Bell Beakers shows the route was
underway. So when you write....
> 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.
It is only a case that the Massiliots were "Johnny come latelies" who
capitalised on a trade route that was in existence long before.
Regards
John