Megalithic shipping and trade routes

[Boreades]

We'll get told off by The Management if we carry on like this.

On second thoughts, while the cat's away...

[Boreades]

Have some trad.archeo's been taking a sneaky peak at TME and getting inspired for places worth a Summer Dig?

Dr Eileen Wilkes is Director of the Mount Folly Enclosures Project, by Bigbury Bay (which has featured here on TME).

The aim of the project is to investigate coastal enclosures at Mount Folly to determine their form, date, function and their relationship, if any, to the later prehistoric and Roman maritime networks.... the Mount Folly enclosures may be one of the largest articulated enclosure settlements in this region. Excavation since 2003 has determined Iron Age – Romano-British dates for two of the enclosures with a Bronze Age phase in the terraced occupation area of the southern enclosure.

http://www.mtfolly.org/

Eileen Wilkes has history as well, as she was involved in the Poole Harbour Iron Age Port project (also featured here on TME) and expresses an interest in prehistoric coastal trading sites.

http://www.wessexportal.co.uk/showcase/ ... -age-port/

[Boreades]

While we've been commenting on the volume of Cornish gold that was exported all over Europe and beyond...

Surprise, surprise! There was more gold in them there hills than the experts had reckoned. Or so they reckon now.

Cornwall was scene of prehistoric gold rush, says new research.

New archaeological research is revealing that south-west Britain was the scene of a prehistoric gold rush. A detailed analysis of some of Western Europe’s most beautiful gold artefacts suggests that Cornwall was a miniature Klondyke in the Early Bronze Age. Geological estimates now indicate that up to 200 kilos of gold, worth in modern terms almost £5 million, was extracted in the Early Bronze Age from Cornwall and West Devon’s rivers – mainly between the 22nd and 17th centuries BC.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 98343.html

As previously mentioned here.

[Mick Harper]

A really weird find has been made in Denmark -- thousands of prehistoric gold spirals. Megalithic Portal has an account here: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6337760

The reason why we should be interested though is, if you scroll down the page a bit, you'll come across a very familiar coastline.

[Boreades]

Standing by for news of where the gold came from...

[Boreades]

From the sheer volume of the spirals, it looks like a wholesale trade or industrial quantity.

[Mick Harper]

Yes, but we need to know why spirals. The possibilities would seem to be: a) they are easy to pack for transport b) they are a by-product of the smelting process c) they are handy for goldsmiths to work with d) long thin strips of gold go all spirally when left in the ground a long time e) that's enough possibilities for now, Mick, go and have a lie down.

[Boreades]

For me, it's (c)

No doubt you've already noticed the spirals are of flat strips of gold. Goldsmiths still make gold wire for jewellery by cutting thin strips off of a flat thin sheet of gold, with snippers. If you've ever done any metalwork like that, you'll remember how the offcut curls because of the shape of the snipper blades. Curling the offcut round a stick as you go would keep the metalwork tidy, and the end result would the the spiral shape as we see it in those pictures.

After that, you straighten out the spiral and then work it down to the diameter you want the wire to be. Seemples!

For example: http://www.engravingschool.com/private/gold-wire.htm

And here's a video of someone doing that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_w-bnDOHoc

[Mick Harper]

Yes, but surely this is unlikely to be the explanation here since gold is far too valuable, and the amounts found here much too voluminous, for these to be 'offcuts'. Or indeed 'samples'. Or (pre-) work product. Unless of course the Megalithic gold industry was on a scale even vastier than our own revisionist longings long for.

The setting -- Denmark, and the east coast of Denmark at that -- might be significant. I suppose it is just possible that the annual gold ship from Ireland or Cornwall (or wherever) came in with the annual supply of beaten gold spirals for onward distribution to all Danish goldsmiths and then someone had to hide the whole shooting match suddenly for some reason.

Could someone keep an eye on any orthodox explanations that are forthcoming? It'll probably turn out to be for ritual purposes.

[TisILeclerc]

Could those spirals be swarf?

If they were turning gold blocks for some reason there'd be a lot of swarf which they would collect for later smelting.



http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-s ... ge30837660

I would imagine that gold being a soft metal would produce ribbons like this. Some metals produce grains etc.

If it is swarf why would they be turning gold? Candlesticks?

On the other hand perhaps they were wires which were wrapped around some other material which has rotted away over time.

Wiki has an article, as ever, on twisted wire work being used for torcs.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torc#/med ... _Hoard.jpg




https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _Hoard.jpg