Maritime Worlds Collide: Agents of Transference and the Metastasis of Seaborne Threats at the End of the Bronze Age

Primary sources from the end of the Bronze Age have long been read as suggesting a time of chaotic transition, particularly with regard to threats from the sea that the established powers had no means of combatting. While the scale and severity of seaborne attacks seems to have increased in the late 13th century, these were not in themselves new phenomena, as a state of maritime threat seems to have been a constant for coastal polities and mariners in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. However, a combination of internal and external factors in the late 13th and early 12th centuries combined to make these attacks more effective than they had been in the past, and polities more vulnerable to them. These included the rapid spread of improvements in maritime technology, particularly from the Aegean and the Levant, via high–intensity ‘zones of transference’, as well as an increase in the scale of ship­–based combat operations, due in part to the displacement of people during the Late Bronze Age collapse. This paper addresses this in two parts, beginning with the ‘background’ evidence for a constant state of maritime threat in the centuries leading up to the end of the Bronze Age, and concluding with the ‘foreground’ evidence for zones of transference and the transmission of groundbreaking elements of naval technology in the years surrounding the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition.     

A hoard of Nilotic nacreous shells from Egypt to Jericho (Early Bronze II, 3000–2800 BCE): Their finding,content and historical archaeological implications

ABSTRACT

The Tell es-Sultan, ancient Jericho, is amongst the earliest “cities” that rose in the Southern Levant between the end of 4th and the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. The site is being excavated, studied and rehabilitated for tourism by Sapienza University of Rome and the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities since 1997. In 2017, during the 13th season of excavation, an unexpected discovery occurred: five Chambardia rubens shells have been found piled up in a dwelling unit dating back to the Early Bronze Age IB-II. The discovery is a tangible evidence of trade and cultural interconnections between the Southern Levant and Egypt, as these shells belong to a species that is only been found to live in the Nile. Moreover, chemical analysis, and thorough Scanning Electron Microscopy examination revealed that the shells contained Manganese Dioxide, an inorganic compound used as make-up ingredient in ancient Egypt, and available in the ores of the Sinai. These findings strongly support the existence of a link between the urban rise in EB IB-II through international trade of luxury goods, and are suggestive of the emergence at Jericho of a ruling elite that was influenced by Egypt.     

Vices Are Not What They Used To Be: The Archaeological Importance of the Term “Vices” in Argentinean Historical Military Documents of the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

This article characterizes the sense and use of the word vicios (vices) in historical documents in nineteenth-century Argentina. The term was frequently used among soldiers, indigenous people, and criollos who occupied the border. The “vices” consisted of a range of highly appreciated edible goods (including tobacco, yerba mate [Ilex paraguariensis], and sugar). Documentary sources do not agree what products fall under the term vicios. We propose some archaeological expectations with regard to each of these products.