December 2015
Vol. III, No. 12
(Very) Long Distant Trade – Egyptian, Mesopotamia and Denmark in the Late Bronze Age
By: Flemming Kaul and Jeanette Varberg
Archaeologists frequently talk about ‘long distance trade.’ But sometimes those distances are very long.
Early glass was a rare and expensive luxury that was traded along the coasts of the Mediterranean between Egypt, the Near East and Mycenaean Greece in ships like the Uluburun shipwreck, excavated off the coast of Turkey, dating to the late 13th Century BCE. But new scientific methods make it possible to determine the origins of Egyptian and Mesopotamian glass beads (almost 300 in total) found in Danish graves more than 5000 kilometers from the glass workshops and dating to the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. As a result, Denmark can be proposed as the most distant area that received such beads, revealing links with the trade systems of the distant Mediterranean.
Twenty-four glass beads recovered from different Danish Bronze Age sites and fragments of glass working debris from the Egyptian site of el-Amarna (in the Denmark National Museum collections) were analyzed by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The technique requires no special preparation of the samples and is virtually non-destructive. The analyses have been carried out by Bernard Gratuze, CNRS, Univ. de Orléans, France.
With the exception of one polychrome bead composed of a turquoise blue spherical body decorated with the colors of amber, white and yellow glass eyes, the twenty-three other beads are monochrome and range from light to dark blue. All samples are soda glass, with soda (Na2O, 14 to 21.5 wt%) as the primary flux, and high magnesia and potash indicating a plant ash source for the soda. These compositions show that the glass used to make the Danish beads and the el-Amarna glass working debris was fused from powdered quartz or siliceous sands containing various amounts of alumina and lime, mixed with the ashes of plants high in soda, such as glasswort (Salicornia sp.) or prickly saltwort (Salsola kali). By comparing the data, it can be observed that the two Danish cobalt blue glass beads and the el-Amarna rods and chunks fall within the Egyptian glass group while the twenty-two remaining Danish glass beads fall within their Mesopotamian glass group.
The Egyptian origin of the two Danish glass beads is confirmed by the composition of their colorant: in both beads, cobalt correlates with nickel, zinc, and manganese. This correlation has been shown to be typical of the cobalt colorant extracted from Egyptian alum deposits such as those at the Kharga and Dakhla oases. The overall composition of these glasses appears also very similar to the Egyptian glass found at the Uluburun wreck from New Kingdom workshops at Malkata and el-Amarna.
The Egyptian and Mesopotamian glass beads found in the Danish graves (most frequently in rich female graves, but also in those of men and children) suggest that by the 14th century BCE trade routes between the Mediterranean and Scandinavia were already well established. Glass was a luxury; Mesopotamian raw glass formed as ingots were given to the Pharaoh Thutmosis III as tribute by Syrian kings. It was highly valued and a significant part of the Mediterranean trade system. The question here is of course why Denmark suddenly became the northernmost trade-post within this system.
The answer may be found along the 7300 kilometer-long shoreline of Denmark, where it is possible to find large quantities of Baltic amber – the ‘gold’ of the north. Amber was another material of high value, and like glass provides evidence for long distance exchange and ancient routes of contact. Today, most of the Bronze Age amber found in the Mediterranean that has been scientifically determined has turned out to be succinate, the ‘Baltic amber’ recovered from the coasts of the Baltic Sea, here including the South Swedish coasts of Scania and Danish Jutland, along with the northwest German Frisian coast on the North Sea. Amber was highly valued in the Mediterranean, and has turned up in Syria and probably Egypt, and may very well be the key to understanding the trade through Europe 1500-1200 BCEE. Splendid Late Bronze Age examples of the most distant finds of Nordic amber are provided in Syria by the ‘Qatna Lion,’ a small lion-shaped amber cup, probably locally produced from a large lump of amber. Perhaps even the beads and scarabs that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen were of Nordic amber.
The Egyptian and Mesopotamian glass beads found in the Danish graves (most frequently in rich female graves, but also in those of men and children) suggest that by the 14th century BCE trade routes between the Mediterranean and Scandinavia were already well established. Glass was a luxury; Mesopotamian raw glass formed as ingots were given to the Pharaoh Thutmosis III as tribute by Syrian kings. It was highly valued and a significant part of the Mediterranean trade system. The question here is of course why Denmark suddenly became the northernmost trade-post within this system.
The answer may be found along the 7300 kilometer-long shoreline of Denmark, where it is possible to find large quantities of Baltic amber – the ‘gold’ of the north. Amber was another material of high value, and like glass provides evidence for long distance exchange and ancient routes of contact. Today, most of the Bronze Age amber found in the Mediterranean that has been scientifically determined has turned out to be succinate, the ‘Baltic amber’ recovered from the coasts of the Baltic Sea, here including the South Swedish coasts of Scania and Danish Jutland, along with the northwest German Frisian coast on the North Sea. Amber was highly valued in the Mediterranean, and has turned up in Syria and probably Egypt, and may very well be the key to understanding the trade through Europe 1500-1200 BCEE. Splendid Late Bronze Age examples of the most distant finds of Nordic amber are provided in Syria by the ‘Qatna Lion,’ a small lion-shaped amber cup, probably locally produced from a large lump of amber. Perhaps even the beads and scarabs that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen were of Nordic amber.
Further south, in the heartland of Late Bronze Age societies, both Baltic amber beads and beads and ingots made of Egyptian glass formed part of the precious cargo of the ship wrecked at Uluburun. In Denmark, when glass beads have been found in burial contexts they are often together with amber beads. It is possible that glass and amber beads shared some symbolic or magical value that made it beneficial to carry them together. In addition, a social value would have been apparent. People at the highest levels of society who controlled and benefitted from the amber export may have been the receivers of the exotic and valuable glass beads. This is supported by the fact that some of the richest Danish female graves (Søvigårde, Omme and Humlum) are physically close to well-known amber find-spots along the Danish west coast.
The Bronze Age traveler
Travelers accompanied every piece of trade goods. For example, new analyses have surprisingly shows that the famous Egtved girl from an oak-coffin burial in South Jutland, Denmark was a Bronze Age traveler. She was probably born somewhere in Southwest Germany, but travelled to Jutland several times before she died there at the age of 18, around 1370 BCE. She is clear evidence of the dynamic Bronze Age traveler, who moved over long distances in a short time. This underlines the probability of travelers moving through Europe to the Mediterranean coast with trade goods. The contact between the cultures in the Bronze Age World may thus have been much more elaborate than previous thought.
By 1400 BCE long distance exchange systems had evolved connecting the shores of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Mesopotamia and the Nile in Egypt with the beaches of the Baltic and North Seas. By 1300-1200 BCE the amount of glass in Danish Bronze Age finds peaked before stopping suddenly, probably because of the collapse of the East Mediterranean trade system around 1177 BCE. What else was exchanged during the Late Bronze Age remains unknown. But the vision of travelers, moving through Europe with their shipments of precious goods should prompt us to look again for evidence of very long distance connections.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Bernard Gratuze, CNRS, Univ. de Orléans, France for his cooperation and analyzing the glass samples.
Flemming Kaul is Curator of Prehistory at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Jeanette Varberg is a Curator at the Moesgaard Museum in Højbjerg, Denmark.
