Metals on the Move: Metallurgy and Technological Transfer along the East Aegean / West Anatolian Littoral
Abstrakt
It has long been acknowledged that the western Anatolian coast and the neighbouring East Aegean islands played a vital role in sociocultural and economic connectivity between Anatolia, the Aegean, and the Greek mainland during the second and the first millennia B.C.E. Although a significant degree of cultural interaction between these regions can be documented by, for example, architecture, stylistic and technological aspects of sculptural or ceramic production, it is clear that certain categories of commodities that contributed to the increased connectivity have rarely been analysed in detail - as compared to earlier (e.g.
EBA) or later (e.g. Byzantine) periods.
This contribution, therefore, maps out one class that played a crucial role in the economic interaction between the region of the East Aegean / West Anatolian Littoral and its eastern and western neighbours: metallurgy. Reviewing recent archaeological discoveries in the region, this paper traces the development of metal production diachronically from the Late Bronze Age down to the Archaic period and highlights the physical evidence for the extraction, production, and working of copper, iron, gold, and silver in the coastal area and on the neighbouring islands, focusing on the central part of the region between the Kaikos/Bakirçay and Maeander/Büyük Menderes Rivers in particular.
Overall, the shifting local, Aegean- and Anatolia-wide as well as long-distance exchange patterns and networks will be highlighted and the possible local innovations from the 15th through the sixth century B.C.E. will be identified in order to demonstrate that the East Aegean island and the western Anatolian littoral were not a mere conduit, but rather an arena of active innovation.