Helen of Troy’s face is said to have launched 1,000 ships. Plato, meanwhile, claimed that the kings of his fabled Atlantis had 1,200 ships…
We now start on a search to uncover the truth behind the Great Lakes copper mystery. If at least some of the near-pure copper found in the Uluburun wreck originated at Lake Superior, the Minoans must have made their way west as well, voyaging through the much-maligned Pillars of Hercules.
According to Greek mythology the pillars were built by Hercules at the Straits of Gibraltar to mark the very edge of the known world. They bore a dire warning: ‘Nec plus ultra’, instructing sailors and navigators to ‘Go No Further!’
Bronze ideally contains around 85 per cent copper. The other 15 per cent is made up of tin or arsenic. Also required is wood. To produce just 1 kilogram (2 pounds) takes around 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of charcoal, smelting 30 kilograms (66 lbs) of ore.
Such quantities of wood were scarce in the Mediterranean and Near East…. and so to Northern Europe we travel next! If Gavin is correct, and copper of the purity found on the Uluburun wreck could only have come from America, ships setting out across the Atlantic would need a base for repairs, provision and preparation for the arduous journey ahead. They would need storage facilities and possibly labour. Could there have been permanent forward bases established in southwest Spain or Portugal?
Further reading:
Rodney Castledon – Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete:
http://books.google.com/books/about/Minoans.html?id=xC1RtVTQGOoC
K. Aslihan Yener. ‘An Early Bronze Age Tin Production Site at Goltepe, Turkey’, The Oriental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/nn/win94_gol.html
Richard Cowen, UC Davis, University of California:
http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/115CH4.html
C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters, Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28674
