Offprint from J. Mei and Th. Rehren (eds), Metallurgy and Civilisation: Eurasia and Beyond Archetype, London 2009. ISBN 1234 5678 9 1011 Metal trade between Europe and Asia in classical antiquity Alessandra Giumlia-Mair, Michel Jeandin and Ken’ichi Ota AbstrAct This paper presents data which testify to the existence of trade and technology transfer between various European and Asian countries in different periods. The connections between East and West were not always direct, but between the Hellenistic period and the Middle Ages they seem to have been at times quite regular and continuous as ancient texts and circumstantial evidence appear to indicate. The ancient texts describing the trade and exchanges in different periods, the various materials and the trade connections are translated and interpreted. Introduction Many exhaustive studies have been carried out on ancient trade and other types of relationships between East and West on themes ranging from parallels between the different philosophical traditions (McEvilley 2002) to the trade of spices in ancient times (Innes Miller 1974), to problems related to a particular region (Vogelsang 1985), and many more. The best studied long-distance trade by far is that of silk (Whitield and Sims-Williams 2004), a fabric that for centuries remained the secret monopoly of ancient China. However, until now, attention has not focused on the ancient trade in metals between East and West and the ancient Greek and Latin texts which give speciic information on details of exchanges of merchandise and know-how in classical times in ancient towns, and in remote places located between Europe and Asia (Fig. 1). Figure 1 Map of Eurasia showing the most important trade centres and the places mentioned in the text. (Drawing: A. Giumlia-Mair.) 35 A L E S S A N D R A G I U M L I A - M A I R , M I C H E L J E A N D I N A N D K E N ’ I C H I O TA This paper developed from work on ancient metallurgy and on ancient texts on metalworking and metal trade in antiquity. The general picture is of a fascinating history of continuous contacts and relationships between the most important countries and civilisations of the ancient world. They were, in ancient times, not as distant and ‘foreign’ to each other as they have been at times in some later periods of the history of our common world: the continent Eurasia. Early metal trade in the Near East and ancient texts Many exotic names of faraway countries are mentioned in texts dated as early as the 3rd millennium BC as the places of origin of different metals; however, in most cases they are rather dificult to identify (Pettinato 1972; Thapar 1975). The name Meluhha, the country from which (or through which) gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli and tin were imported to Mesopotamia, seems to indicate the southern coast of Pakistan or southern Iran (Reiter 1997: 4; Prange 2001: 11). Dilmun might have been Bahrein, but this interpretation is not accepted by all scholars (Reiter 1997: 8, 24). Zaršu, Hašbar, Yanna and Kusu, mentioned in late Babylonian texts as the countries from which silver came, cannot be easily identiied. Even the mines in the silver country Elam are not precisely located, but they might have been in Kerman (Allen 1979: 14, 119; Reiter 1997: 79). The only identiication that seems to be generally accepted is that of the legendary copper country Magan with modern Oman (Heimpel 1987; Prange et al. 1999; Prange 2001: 29). The origins of early Near Eastern tin have been discussed by many scholars and, until now, the most acceptable hypothesis seems to be that of a tin trade from Afghanistan (Muhly 1985; Stech and Pigott 1986: 47, 56; Giumlia-Mair 2003: 93). In spite of the vague geography there are nevertheless solid proofs of very early intensive trade going to and from areas such as Pakistan and Badakshan to the eastern Mediterranean. Objects such as the vessels made of carved chlorite and decorated with turquoise (Fig. 2) were already being traded from Badakshan through Iran and Syria to the West and to the Indus valley to the East in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC (Carter 1997), while the export of lapis lazuli from Badakshan and Beluchistan (Tosi 1974; Casanova 1993, 1995; Bouquillon and Poirot 1995: 33–4) is documented by its use in the making of jewellery and luxury objects all over the Mediterranean from the 5th millennium BC (Casanova 1995: 17). Due to space restrictions, this brief paper can only deal with the most important Greek and Latin texts on mines and the metal trade between East and West in the classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods. Many of these texts mention fabulous riches and treasures, often protected by fantastic animals or other rather imaginary details. They were probably inspired by local legends as well as by stories told by merchants who regularly visited remote places to ind rare merchandise in an attempt to stave off rival traders. Nevertheless, the metals mentioned in many of these stories can be interpreted as a relection of actually exist36 Figure 2 Vessels of carved chlorite decorated with turquoise were already being traded from Badakshan to the East and the West in the 3rd millennium BC (Carter 1997). ing local goods, which took on exaggerated sizes and characteristics through second- and third-hand narrations over long periods of time. We cannot expect to ind in the ancient literature detailed descriptions of mining sites, smelting processes and metallurgical production related to the Asian trade, except in very few special cases. However, the information that can be gathered from ancient sources is often valuable because it provides hints on speciics related to myths and beliefs about metal production and metals, and to distinctive features that depended on the idiosyncratic perception by ancient man of the working or production processes. These details are fundamental for the philological reconstruction of the history of ancient metallurgy and could never be obtained solely from metallurgical analyses. Greek texts Herodotus The earliest classical text which gives extensive information on the world behind the Caucasus and the Urals is that of the historian Herodotus, born at Halicarnassus, Asia Minor, METAL TRADE BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY (a) in the 5th century BC (Powell 1939). In the fourth book of his work, Historiai, he describes his irst-hand impressions of the land and populations of faraway Scythia, where he travelled to the Borysthenes (Dnieper), the Tanai (Don), the palus Maeotis (Maeotian Swamp, now Sea of Azov) and across to the Aral Sea. When describing the populations living on the territories towards the north and east of Scythia he cites the names of tribes taken from the work of Aristeas, a poet from the island of Proconnesus in the Sea of Marmora at the mouth of the Black Sea who lived in the 7th century BC. Aristeas travelled across the Caspian area to the Issedons in Central Asia and wrote a poem, the Arimaspea, about the countries he visited: modern-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and possibly Mongolia. Herodotus also mentions several of the legends of these countries which relect the abundance of gold. In several passages he underlines the large amount of gold (Fig. 3a, b) found in the northern regions of Central Asia, among the tribes of the Arimaspoi or Arimaspes (III, 116). From the inds in the kurgans, there is no doubt that this metal was used profusely in this very large area. In the third book of the Historiai, Herodotus mentions the regions of the Achaemenian Empire, up to India and Xinjiang, and enumerates the tributes the Persian king received from the 20 satrapies into which he had divided his empire. It is quite evident that Herodotus can draw on reliable oficial sources. Most of the tributes were in silver, the quantity depending on the size and the economy of the province. The 9th satrapy for example, which (b) Figure 3 (a) The ‘calathos of the Arimaspoi’, from the Bolshaya Bliznitsa burial mound on the Taman peninsula, is made of 30 gold sheets and decorated with blue enamel. H: 10 cm. (Courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.) (b) Detail of the ‘calathos of the Arimaspoi’. The reliefs represent barbarians (Arimaspoi) ighting grifins. The myth of the grifins guarding gold is frequently illustrated in the art of the Bosporan kingdom. (Courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.) included Phrygia, Paphlagonia and Kylikia, paid 360 silver talents, while Babylonia and Assyria gave 1000 talents. The 20th satrapy along the River Indus paid as much as all the other provinces combined: 360 talents of gold dust. From Herodotus (IV, 44) we also gather that, before the conquest, Darius sent to India a sailor from the West called Scylax of Caryanda, because he wanted to know where the 37 A L E S S A N D R A G I U M L I A - M A I R , M I C H E L J E A N D I N A N D K E N ’ I C H I O TA Indus lowed into the sea. Scylax left from Caspatyrus in Paktyike (i.e. somewhere in Gandara on the River Kabul). He and his companions ‘sailed down the river to the East, toward the sun and to the sea. Once on the sea, they sailed to the West and arrived in the 30th month to the place where the king of Egypt had sent the Phoenicians to circumnavigate Lybia (i.e. Africa)’. The adventure of Scylax, as that of the ‘man who irst explored Asia’, was quite well known in antiquity. In the 5th century BC he was only one of many Western sailors and traders who crossed the Persian Empire and navigated along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian gulf to India. ctesias The Greek Ctesias from Cnidus was physician at the court of King Artaxerxes II Mnemon from 405 to 398/97 BC. He took part in the battle of Cunaxa (Xenophon, Anabasis, 1, 8, 26, Photius, 3, 64; Ctesias 2005) as personal physician of the king and after 17 years he returned to Cnidus where he wrote several books about Persia and India. They are now lost, but were quoted by ancient authors such as Diodorus Siculus, Photius, Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Theopompos, Ephoros etc. In his books he described silver mines, precious stones and gold mining; however, most of his descriptions tend to be hyperbolised and extravagant, like that of a fountain for example, which ‘illed every year with liquid gold’, and from which a hundred pitchers of gold (weighing one talent each) were drawn. According to the story, at the bottom of the fountain there was also iron from which Ctesias claimed that he had two swords made – one given to him by the king, the other by his mother Parysatis. This iron could keep off clouds, hail and hurricanes when ixed in the earth, as the king showed him in two different sets of circumstances. Such stories could be termed thaumatology (‘the account of miracles’). Ctesias’s description of the Persian silver and gold mines is nevertheless rather interesting; he states that: Alexander and the Graeco-bactrian kings In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, conquered a wide area from Greece and Egypt to present-day Kazakhstan and India, incorporating all the regions that had previously belonged to the Persian Empire. His armies arrived in Fergana where he founded Alexandria Eschate (now Khojand in Tajikistan) and continued on to Drangiana, Arachosia and Gandara in Pakistan, where he founded more towns: Alexandria Areion (Hera), Alexandria ad Caucasum (Charikar), Alexandria Oxiana (al-Chanum), Alexandria Arachotón (Kandahar), Alexandria Profthasia (Farah), AlexandriaGhazni, Alexandria-Chenab, Alexandria Margiana (Merv), with a few more in India, for example near Patala, and two on the River Indus. Alexander’s conquests opened up new pathways for culture and trade. Suddenly the size of the known world had shrunk (for further details on the inluence of Greek culture on the Indian civilisation see, for example, Boardman 1994). After Alexander’s death, the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom was born. Hellenistic Bactria comprised Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and some parts of Pakistan. On Bactrian history we possess the texts of Strabo (11: 10–12), Polybius (10: 48–9; 11: 34) and fragments of Apollodorus in Strabo (15: 1–3). The main sources of information on the Graeco-Bactrian and GraecoIndian kings come from coins (Bopearachchi 1991), as no detailed historical account or archive exists. The GraecoBactrian kings were the irst to issue cupro-nickel coins and much discussion has taken place as to the origins of this alloy. One hypothesis is that of a technology transfer from China, where baitong (white copper, i.e. cupronickel) was allegedly in use since the Spring and Autumn period (8th–5th century BC, Widemann, in this volume, pp. 26–34). the country produces much silver and there are numerous silver mines, not very deep, while those of Bactria are said to be deeper. There was also gold, not found in rivers and washed, as in the river Pactolus, but in many large mountains which are inhabited by grifins. These are four-footed birds as large as a wolf, their legs and claws resembling those of a lion; their breast feathers are red, those of the rest of the body black. Although there is abundance of gold in the mountains, it is dificult to get it because of these birds (Ctesias 2005: 6). His description might refer to the deep gold mines in Georgia, exploited in the 3rd millennium BC (Hauptmann et al. 2006) and belonging, at the time, to the Persian Empire. The grifins were almost certainly taken from local legends and represent a good example of the embroideries which apparently Ctesias could not resist. 38 Figure 4 Coin of Demetrius I of Bactria (205–171 BC), the ‘Invincible’, son of Euthydemus I. He invaded India and arrived at the Ganges and Patna. On the coin he is wearing an elephant headgear, symbol of his conquests in India. (Drawing: A. Giumlia-Mair.) METAL TRADE BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY The foundations of the Graeco-Indian kingdom were laid when in 304 BC Seleucus Nicator invaded Punjab. In 180 BC King Demetrius I of Bactria arrived at the Ganges and Patna (Fig. 4). Menander (155–130 BC) conquered northern India and, as Milinda, he became a respected Buddhist sage. Megasthenes At the time of the irst Bactrian invasion of India, the geographer Megasthenes (350–290 BC) was sent as ambassador by King Seleucus of Syria to King Chandragupta Maurya. He wrote a book (Indica) on his travels, but of this only fragments reported by other writers survive. Megasthenes discusses the riches of the country in several passages: ‘while the soil bears … all kinds of fruits … it has also underground numerous veins of all sorts of metals, for it contains much gold and silver, and copper and iron in no small quantity, and even tin and other metals’ (Oldfather 1935, in Diod, II, 36). His story about ants which dig for gold is rather famous and a parallel, the Pipīlaka gold (i.e. ant’s gold) is also found in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata (Lal 2005: 52.2–4) (600–500 BC). Megasthenes, reported by Strabo (XV, 1. 44), claims that the ‘ants’ were ferocious and the size of foxes. They attacked the gold seekers and often killed them and their cattle. Before Megasthenes, Herodotus (III, 102) had also written about gold-digging ants and even the famous Roman scholar Pliny (XI: 111) refers to a similar story. Among other less credible hypotheses, the gold-digging ants have been interpreted as marmots because in the land of the Drok-pa of Ladakh, identiied with Megasthenes’ Derdai, auriferous sand is collected from the burrows of these animals. Their ferocity would again be a story invented to discourage potential foreign gold seekers (Dube 1996: 10). Megasthenes (quoted by Pliny, IV: 81) also knew about Taprobane (Sri Lanka): ‘Taprobane is divided by a river, the inhabitants are called Paleogonoi and they are richer in gold and large pearls than the Indians.’ Greek travellers to India (2nd–1st century bc) At the time of the Graeco-Indian kingdom, the trade contacts with the East were easier and became more intensive, particularly on the sea route. Portolani (i.e. pilots’ books containing description of the ports) and travel reports multiply. Some fragments of the books On the Erythraean sea with the description of the countries and ports of this area and ta katà ten Asìan (On Asian matters) of Agatharchides of Cnidus (2nd century BC) are preserved in the work of Strabo (14, 2.15) and his description of the gold mines in Nubia is quite famous (Diodorus 3: 12–18) (Burstein 1989; Booth 1814). The story of the journey of a Greek merchant called Iambulus from Ethiopia to Taprobane (‘the fortunate island where people are kind and gentle’) by Diodorus (2, 4) is less well known. He remained in Sri Lanka for seven years and returned to Greece via Persia, with the help of the king of the Indian town Polybothia (perhaps a Bactrian king) who ‘had a great love for the Greeks and was very studious in the liberal sciences’. The complex story of Eudoxus of Cyzicus is told by Strabo (2, 3, 4–5) who reports from Poseidonius (135–51 BC). Eudoxus was sent to India by Ptolemy Euergetes of Egypt. He returned with a cargo of perfumes, gold and precious stones, but Euergetes took everything from him. After the death of the king, his wife Cleopatra succeeded him and Eudoxus was sent to India again. On his return he was driven off-course to the south of Ethiopia, where he found a fragment from a wrecked ship with the carving of a horse; he was told that the ship came from the West. When he arrived back in Egypt, the son of Cleopatra, another Ptolemy, was now the pharaoh and he again coniscated Eudoxus’ cargo. However, he discovered that the wrecked ship he had found in the south of Ethiopia was from Gades and from this he conjectured that the circumnavigation of Libya (i.e. Africa) was possible. On his return home, he took all his worldly belongings and put to sea bound for India circumnavigating Africa. However, to cut a long story short, apparently after the third attempt and the ifth wrecked ship, he was never seen again. One of the last Graeco-Indian kings was Hermaeus. From historical Chinese records (48–33 BC) it appears that Hermaeus was their ally in the war against the reign of Jibin. According to the Hou Hanshu (96A) (Hill 2003), he was installed as king of Jibin and vassal of the Chinese emperor. The Graeco-Indian kingdom came to an end when the last territory in Punjab was invaded by Indo-Scythians at the end of the 1st century BC (Tarn 1938). Roman times the sea routes and the Periplus of the Erythraean sea This famous and very detailed pilot’s book describes the navigation and trade from Roman Egyptian ports along the coast of the Red Sea, the Persian gulf and the Indian Ocean. Brass, sheets of copper, weapons, tools and vessels were sold to the locals. Gold and silver plates were reserved for the king (5; 8; 10; 24; 28; 39) (Burstein 1989; Beliore 2004). Silver coins were also sold as bullion and this apparently created problems for the Roman state. Ancient drachmae with Greek letters, possibly from Bactria, were still in circulation at Barygaza (47). At Ozene and Nelcynda copper, tin and lead, and silver and gold coins were much appreciated goods; glass, realgar and powdered antimony were also sold. On the local market, pearls, ivory, silk cloth, transparent stones of all kinds, diamonds and sapphires, and tortoiseshell could be bought (49). In the 1st century AD, Indian iron and steel could be found even on the market on the Dahlak islands (Alalaios) in the Red Sea, among all sorts of other exotic goods (5). 39 A L E S S A N D R A G I U M L I A - M A I R , M I C H E L J E A N D I N A N D K E N ’ I C H I O TA Figure 5 Funerary relief of the Peticii family, Roman merchants, depicting a dromedary as a symbol of trade with the East. Museum of l’Aquila, 1st century BC–1st century AD. (Drawing: A. Giumlia-Mair.) the land route to Asia There is considerably less information on the land routes leading to Asia – the traders seem to have kept these secret (Fig. 5). The only extant written document is the stathmoi Parthikoi (Parthic Stations), a geography of the eastern countries by the scholar Isidorus from Spasinus (or Charax Spasinus), at the mouth of the Euphrates, ordered by Augustus when he was planning to go to war against the Parthians (Beliore 2004: app. B, 205–59). The partially preserved text gives the itinerary of the caravans crossing Parthia in 19 paragraphs. The route and toll stations from Antiochia in Syria to Zeugma on the River Euphrates, to Seleucia, the Caspian Sea and through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to Alexandria Arachotòn are described in detail. The text gives the distances in schoinoi, the linear measure used in Egypt, between 30 and 48 stadii (5.2 and 5.6 km). Isidorus’ work is dated between the end of the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD. the Uganda Nile and a mountain with three peaks (perhaps Kilimanjaro). However, the most fascinating description is that given to Marinus by Maes Titianos, a merchant who between AD 100 and 120 visited the marketplace at the Λίθινος Πύργος (Stone Tower) (Ptolemäus 1990, I: 17.5), in the country of the Sacha people in Central Asia. Here he and his men exchanged their goods with merchants from all over the known world and in particular with the Seri, the silk people (i.e. Chinese traders) (Alemany i Vilamajó 2002). The group of traders left Hierapolis on the Euphrates in the direction of Bactria through Edessa, Ecbatana, Rhagai, past the pylae Caspiae, Hecatompylos in Hircania and Antiochia in Margiana. At Bactria they stopped to meet the caravans from India and then continued to the Stone Tower for a longer bivouac. The place was identiied (Innes Miller 1974: 242) with Tashkurgan in Xinjiang, because of the name of the town which means ‘stone tumulus’ or ‘stone fortiication’. However, the fortiication on the site is dated to AD 1277–1367 and the location in Xinjiang does not correspond to the ancient descriptions of a relatively narrow valley between high mountains. There are at least four places called Tashkurgan around the Pamir, but none seems to be acceptable as the location of the ancient Stone Tower. A further hypothesis for the location of the Stone Tower is the area of Qarategin, in Tadjikistan (Beliore 2004: 251), but again the geography of the place does not correspond to what we know from Maes Titianos. A location that seems to be much closer to the ancient description is near the town Osh, on the road through the Terek Pass and to the important crossing of Sary Tash (Fig. 6), where it meets the road to the Irkeshtam Pass on the modern border with China. The road from Irkeshtam leads down to Kashi in Xinjiang. Going to the west of Sary Tash through the Kyzyl Suu valley it was possible to reach Sogdiana; to the south a road leads through the Kyzyl Art Pass into the Gorno Badakshan and to the Indus and Gandara. One important reason for choosing this route was that the Terek Pass was open all year and fodder was Marinus of tyros and claudius Ptolemy In the 1st century AD, Marinus of Tyros wrote his ‘Geography’, for which he developed a system of coordinates, with 15 meridians and eight climates. His world map was completed by detailed comments and topographical indications provided by travellers to Asia. Using their irst-hand information he was able to correct many of the mistakes of previous geographical works. A sailor called Diodoros of Samos provided details on the sea route to India, and another sailor, Alexandros, described how he came to Kattigara (near Hanoi) in the gulf of Tonkin. Three men – Diogenes, Theophilus and Dioskoros – navigated a route to Zanzibar. Diogenes in particular visited Lake Nyanza (Victoria), and described the Ruwenzori Mountains, 40 Figure 6 The Gulcho River not far from Sary Tash and the important crossing leading to the east (Xinjiang), to the south (Murghab), to the west (Sogdiana) and to the north (Osh in Fergana). (Photo: J. Barnes.) METAL TRADE BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Figure 7 Detail of Ptolemy’s cosmographia (1st–2nd century AD). The page representing Central Asia shows the place called turris Lapidea Mons (Mountain Stone Tower in Latin). The writing is placed around a mountain, not a building or a tower, in a valley to the east of Fergana (Ptolemaeus, cosmographia, XXII, Asiae tabula septima). Figure 8 Detail of Ptolemy’s cosmographia. The page representing China shows the Casia regio, i.e. the region of Kashi in Xinjiang with the Tian Shan and the Kun Lun Mountains. The note in Latin near the town at the pass into Xingjiang states: ‘the town where to pass into Scythia’ (Ptolemaeus, cosmographia, XXIII, Asiae tabula Octava). available for the animals – no grass grew along the other routes (Stein 1933). The geographer Claudius Ptolemy relied heavily on Marinus’ work and reproduced his writings in his wellknown cosmographia. The copy in the National Library of Naples is dated to the 15th century, but it is copied from older versions (apparently from that of Agathodaimon of Alexandria, dated to the 4th century AD) and therefore very close to the original. The precision of the maps representing the Mediterranean and the Arabian coasts is quite amazing, while other parts are not as precise. The Caspian Sea, for example, is horizontal, the triangle of India is too lat and Sri Lanka too large; however, the outlines and the proportions are generally quite recognisable. The page of Ptolemy’s cosmographia representing Central Asia illustrates the place called turris Lapidea Mons (i.e. the Latin for Stone Tower) (Fig. 7). Identiication on the map is not easy and is somewhat of a surprise – the letters are placed awkwardly around what is clearly a mountain, not a building or a tower, in a valley to the east of Fergana. Alexandria Ultima (Latin for Alexandria Eschate, Khojand) at the entrance of Fergana is marked behind a mountain range. The site is also without doubt before Xinjiang, because the next page of the cosmographia shows the Casia Regio, i.e. the region of Kashi-Kashgar. Xinjiang is represented as an ample valley with the Tian Shan and Kun Lun Mountains (Fig. 8). The note in Latin jotted next to the town at the mountain pass leading into Xinjiang (Irkeshtam) states: ‘the town where to pass into Scythia’. This was the equivalent of Sacha, meaning the regions of the nomadic tribes. Indeed, the area around Osh is separated from the west of Fergana by a chain of mountains and the shape of the valley is similar to that of Ptolemy’s map. In Osh there is a high isolated hill, the venerated Suleyman Mountain (Fig. 9), an important landmark in antiquity as it is now. This mountain might be Ptolemy’s turris Lapidea Mons (Mountain of the Stone Tower). The Chinese merchants who traded at the market at the Stone Tower were able to give Maes Titianos the exact distance from there to the capital of the silk country, Ch’hangan (present-day Xi’an). From archaeological inds and written sources we know that European countries exported to China worked metal, glass, amber, coral, fruits and dyes (Needham 1984: 89). One of the most appreciated metallurgical products from China was ferrum sericum (Chinese iron), uniformly carburised, obtained from cast iron and decarburised to become steel (Sun 2002: 66–7; Giumlia-Mair and Maddin 2004: 129–30; Wayman and Michaelson 2006). This was a far better metal than forge-welded European iron. Iron from china and iron from India Figure 9 The distinctive Suleyman Mountain at Osh (Kyrgyzstan) might be Marinus’ Stone Tower, an important landmark in antiquity. (Photo: W. Liphold.) In the 1st century AD, Quintus Curzius Rufus wrote a biography of Alexander, the Historiae Alexandri Magni in which he states that Alexander received a tribute of ‘white iron’ from the Oxydrachs and Mallians in Punjab (Curzius Rufus 1977). Some scholars have tried to interpret this passage 41 A L E S S A N D R A G I U M L I A - M A I R , M I C H E L J E A N D I N A N D K E N ’ I C H I O TA as an indication of the use of baitong, but the text clearly mentions iron (8, 1 ferri candidi talenta centum: 100 talents of white iron). There is no reason to interpret it as cupronickel either, as in the 4th century BC most people could distinguish a copper-based alloy from iron. It is not obvious whether cast iron from China or wootz from India was meant, but it is clear that it was iron. According to Pliny (34: 145): ‘… of all varieties of iron the palm goes to the Seric (Chinese), the second to the Parthian iron’. The reason why Parthian iron was considered the second best is probably too complex and lengthy to be discussed in this paper, but it may also have been cast iron that came to the West from China through Parthia. However, another kind of exotic iron was also in circulation in the Roman Empire: the esteemed ferrum Indicum or Indian iron. Justinian’s Digestum (AD 527–565) lists the goods imported from the East subject to custom duties. Among spices, precious stones, pearls and ivory, Indian iron is also mentioned. This material, listed also in the Periplus of the Erithraean sea (see above), seems to be wootz and is discussed in detail in the work of one of the most famous and important alchemists of Alexandria in Egypt: Zosimos of Panopolis (2nd century AD). He reports a recipe giving the weights and lists ingredients including date peel (as carbon supplier) and ‘female magnesia’ which in the past, following one of the different translations given for the word ‘magnesia’ by the great scholar Berthelot (1967: 1, 221, 255), was interpreted as manganese dioxide (Allan and Gilmour 2000: 63–4; Craddock and Lang 2004: 41). However, in this text Zosimos speciies that this material is not the common magnesia, but ‘female magnesia of the glass maker’. This material might perhaps be the bone ashes employed by glaziers as stabiliser (see Giumlia-Mair and Maddin 2004: 128–33 for translation and details). If this interpretation of ‘female magnesia’ as bone ashes is correct, the text might also explain the reason for the presence of phosphorus in the structure of some Damascus blades, which until now has remained a mystery (Gilmour 1996: 120). It is quite important to note that this recipe belongs to a batch collected by Zosimos from some texts from Persia, but, as expressly stated, ‘translated under Philip’s reign, King of Macedonia’, i.e. under the reign of one of the several successors of Alexander called Philip, between Alexander’s death in 323 and the battle of Pydna in 168 BC. This important text conirms the transmission of this recipe to the Mediterranean through Persia (at least in this case), and establishes a date between the 4th and the 2nd century BC for the introduction of crucible steel in the West. Around the 2nd century BC, pattern-welded blades also begin to circulate in Europe. If, as it seems, crucible steel was already known at this time, perhaps pattern-welded blades might be an imitation of blades made of crucible steel. However, at this time there is no evidence of this, but relatively few blades dated to this time have been studied. Crucible steel blades might have come from the East through different paths – perhaps from India on the sea 42 route, from Persia over the Near East or from Central Asia through the steppes of northern Europe. The above represents only a concise report on a choice of ancient passages. Apart from the ancient Greek and Latin texts there are more (not less interesting but little known) medieval texts, mainly written by monks and traders, such as Giovanni di Pian del Carpine (1180–1252) and Giovanni di Marignolli (1339–1353), addressing similar issues. 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Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 43 Contents Foreword by Weidong Luo, chancellor, University of science and technology beijing Foreword by robert Maddin, chairman of the bUMA standing committee Preface Acknowledgements List of contributors Introduction vii ix xi xiii xvii xxi Early metallurgy across Eurasia Ancient metallurgy in the Eurasian steppes and China: problems of interactions Evgenij chernykh 3 Early metallurgy in China: some challenging issues in current studies Jianjun Mei 9 Metal trade in Bronze Age Central Eurasia Liangren Zhang 17 Documentary and archaeological evidence for an antique copper-nickel alloy (baitong) production in southern China and its exportation to India François Widemann 26 Metal trade between Europe and Asia in classical antiquity Alessandra Giumlia-Mair, Michel Jeandin and Ken’ichi Ota 35 The black bronzes of Asia Paul craddock, Maickel van bellegem, Philip Fletcher, richard blurton and susan La Niece 44 Bronze casting technologies in ancient China Origins and evolution of the casting technology of Anyang bronze ritual vessels: an exploratory survey Yu Liu 55 Three Western Zhou bronze foundry sites in the Zhouyuan area, Shaanxi province, China Wenli Zhou, Jianli chen, Xingshan Lei, tianjin Xu, Jianrong chong and Zhankui Wang 62 New research on lost-wax casting in ancient China Weirong Zhou, Yawei Dong, Quanwen Wan and changsui Wang 73 Incipient metallurgy in Yunnan: new data for old debates tzehuey chiou-Peng 79 METALLURGY AND CIVILISATION: EURASIA AND BEYOND A study of the surface craft of weapons from the Ba-Shu region of ancient China Zhihui Yao and shuyun sun 85 Production of signature artifacts for the nomad market in the state of Qin during the late Warring States period in China (4th–3rd century BCE) Katheryn M. Linduff 90 Ancient iron and steel technologies in Asia An early iron-using centre in the ancient Jin state region (8th–3rd century BC) rubin Han and Hongmei Duan 99 From western Asia to the Tianshan Mountains: on the early iron artefacts found in Xinjiang Wu Guo 107 South Indian Iron Age iron and high carbon steel: with reference to Kadebakele and comparative insights from Mel-siruvalur sharada srinivasan, carla M. sinopoli, Kathleen D. Morrison, rangaiah Gopal and srinivasa ranganathan 116 Survival of traditional Indian ironworking Vibha tripathi and Prabhakar Upadhyay 122 Fine structures: mechanical properties and origin of iron of an ancient steel sword excavated from an old mound in Japan Masahiro Kitada 129 Specialisation in iron- and steel-making in the early Middle East and Central Asia: myths, assumptions and a reassessment of early manuscript evidence brian Gilmour 134 Ancient metallurgical and manufacturing processes vi The early history of lost-wax casting christopher J. Davey 147 A natural draught furnace for bronze casting bastian Asmus 155 The liquation process utilised in silver production from copper ore: the transfer to and development in Japan Eiji Izawa 163 A technical study of silver samples from Xi’an, Shaanxi province, China, dating from the Warring States period to the Tang dynasty Junchang Yang, Paul Jett, Lynn brostoff and Michelle taube 170 Scientiic analysis of lead-silver smelting slag from two sites in China Pengfei Xie and thilo rehren 177