EARLY BRONZE AGE TROJAN METAL SOURCES AND ANATOLIANS IN THE CYCLADES

Abstract

Summary. New chemical analyses of EB II copper‐alloy artefacts from Troy show that about seventy per cent are of high tin, low arsenic, bronze; the remaining Trojan objects are of arsenical copper but contain no more than 3 per cent of arsenic. Lead‐isotope analyses suggest that at this time the Trojans made use of at least five different copper‐ore deposits and that at least two of these were not in the immediate vicinity of Troy itself. At this period tin bronze was unknown in the Early Helladic, Cycladic or Minoan cultures. Low‐arsenic tin bronzes do however constitute sixty‐nine per cent of the copper‐alloy artefacts excavated at the fortified hilltop EC IIIA settlement at Kastri on Syros, but lead‐isotope analyses show that the copper in these objects is derived from three different ore deposits which are different from those exploited by the early Cycladic peoples on Amorgos, Paros, Kythnos and Chalandriani on Syros. For Kastri the alloy types are closely similar to and the copper ore sources used are identical with those employed in Troy II; in addition there are good Anatolian parallels for some of the metal types occurring at Kastri. Taken together with evidence from the pottery, the architecture and the nature of the site it seems inescapable that Kastri was a short‐lived settlement of Anatolians who lived, perhaps, in somewhat uneasy juxtaposition with their Cycladic neighbours. These Anatolians came most probably from Troy or the Troad since tin bronze was virtually unknown at this period elsewhere in Anatolia, and certainly not in Cilicia, except at the central Anatolian sites of Ahlatlibel, Alishar and Alaca Hüyük.

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