Michigan Copper in the Mediterranean (cont.)
By Jay Stuart Wakefield, MES & AAPF
Where did the copper go?
Enormous orders for bronze weapons are recorded
on excavated Bronze Age clay tablets, for swords in the tens of
thousands. The Roman soldier is said to have worn up to 48 pounds of
bronze in his uniform. Armies throughout the ancient world were
equipped with bronze weapons. Statues and musical instruments,
chariots, furniture and vases were made of copper and bronze. Even
rooms were lined with copper and bronze. After the bronze Colossus
of Rhodes was destroyed in an
earthquake in 226 B.C., it was sold to a merchant, who used almost
1,000 camels to ship the pieces to Syria (Ref.13). “From only
5% of the Karum Kanesh tablets, we already know of 110 donkey loads
carrying 15 tons of tin into Anatolia, enough to produce (at 5-7% tin
content) 200 to 300 tons of bronze.”(Ref.23).
 Click for fullsize image Minoan Traders
A variety of cultural groups were involved in
the mining, shipping, and trading of copper, among them the
Egyptians, the Megalithic peoples of the western coast of Europe, the
Atlanteans, and the Minoans. The Minoans have the reputation of
controlling the copper trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. “It
is in the New Palace period in Bronze
Age Minoan
Crete, that we find a large increase
in population, particularly in settlements along the coasts, the
growth of towns, which in some cases surround mini-palaces, luxurious
separate town houses at palatial and other sites, and fine country
villas…Villas and houses at Ayia Triadha and Tylissos
contained not only weights and loom weights, but also copper oxhide
ingots and Linear A tablets, and both are rich in luxury products and
bronze objects. Minoan prowess in metal weapon production was not
limited to the long sword, but included the short sword, the solid
long dagger and the shoe-socketed and tube-socketed spearhead and
arrowhead, all of which may have made their first Aegean appearance
in Crete”… Neopalatial Crete is extremely rich in
bronze, but very poor in sources of copper and of course totally
lacking in sources of tin” (Ref.23). The Newberry
Tablet of Newberry, Michigan (Fig.6)
is in a Cypriot/Cretan sylabary. Cretan script may have been the
basis of the Cree sylabary (Ref.7), and Mayan writing (Ref.3).
 Click for fullsize image
The “Cavern of Glyphs” on the Ohio
River had images of clothed figures that “singularly recall the
dress of the Minoans, as seen on the frescoes at Knossos in Crete”
(Ref.79). A Minoan pot has been unearthed in Louisiana. The Olmecs
laid mosaic tiles at La Venta, (Mexico) upon asphalt, the same
technique used in Crete (Ref.3). The excavation of the wealthy grave
goods at Hallstatt
(see Fig.5)
show that traders brought Minoan pots as well as copper/bronze pots
to trade for salt.
 Click for fullsize image
It appears that the ruling elite of Hallstatt were among the end
customers of Michigan copper, as well as the Egyptians.
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