Re: Sources of Tin, was Iron and Steel...

From: *** Wisan (wisanr_at_catskill.net)
Date: 06/19/04 

Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 01:04:21 -0400

Doug Weller dweller@ramtops.thisremove.co.uk says...
>
>On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 08:15:20 -0400, *** Wisan wrote:
>>
>> Dunno, but Diodorus' description probably came from Pytheas. This
>> isn't quite proof (even in the historians' sense) but it's reason
>> to think so. Cornwall is certainly a place Pytheas went, so to make
>> a plausible denial you'd really have to be claiming he found the tin
>> trading in some other part of Britain, and wherever else in Britain
>> they were extracting tin, Cornwall is certainly a likely spot for
>> it. I'd say, if you're running for office on an anti-ancient Cornish
>> tin platform, you can claim to have preserved deniablilty, but is it
>> really "_plausible_ deniabilty"?
>
>Again no time, where does it say that tin mining was taking place in
>Cornwall?

Remember, we don't have Pytheas' book, and we don't have explicit
quotations. Cunliffe quotes a passage from Diodorus:

    The inhabitants of Britain who live on the promontory called
    Belerion are especially friendly to strangers and have
    adopted a civilized way of life because of their interaction
    with traders and other people. It is they who work the tin,
    treating the layer which contains it in an ingenious way.
    This layer, being like rock, contains earthy seams and in
    them the workers quarry the ore which they then melt down to
    clean from its impurities. Then they work the tin into
    pieces the size of knuckle-bones and convey it to an island
    which lies off Britain, called Ictis; for at the ebb-tide
    the space between this island and the mainland becomes dry
    and they can take the tin in large quantities over to the
    island on their wagons...
    ...On the island of Ictis the merchants buy the tin from the
    natives and carry it from there across the Strait of Galatia
    [the Channel] and finally, making their way on foot through
    Gaul for some thirty days, they bring the goods on horse
    back to the mouth of the Rhone.

This kind of detail seems circumstantial. These must come from
somebody's observation, and Cunliffe takes it to be Pytheas'. That
seems reasonable, but it ain't a certified quotation. "Belerion"
seems to be the Penwith Peninsula of Land's End, but "Ictis" is not
so clear. There are various candidates along the South coast from
Penwith east. In some of these places bronzes from well before
Pytheas' time are found and occasional tin ingots of the knucklebone
type. Signs of tin working, therefore appears, but no relics of
mining from these early times --but consider what's been going on
in the tin extraction areas since.

So it appears that Pytheas saw and reported tin extraction in Britain,
but exactly where is not clear. I came late to this thread. How
close to Cornwall must it be for whatever purpose this thread has
generated the issue? 

-- 
R. N. (***) Wisan  - Email: wisanr@catskill.net
                    - Snail: 37 Clinton Street, Oneonta NY 13820, U.S.A.
                    - Just your opinion, please, ma'am: No fax.
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