"Brit-Am Now"-634
Contents:
1. Phoenician type script via Khazars influenced early Hungarian writing?
2. Ancient Tin Supplies from the Iberian Peninsula and from Britain
3. Tin and Bronze From Cornwall

1. Phoenician type script via Khazars influenced early Hungarian writing?
The URLs below were brought to our attention by Joan Griffith
http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/rovas/clu/clues.html
http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/rovas/inf/rovasE.html
http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/rovas/marsigli.html
I have not read the accompanying articles all the way through
but they seem to be saying that an ancient script used by the
ancestors of the Hungarians in the Ukrainian area (before they migrated
to Hungary) used a script of their own which was heavily influenced by
the Phoenician (Ancient Hebrew) alphabet. They suggest that this alphabet
reached them through contact with the Khazars who once ruled over that area.

2. Ancient Tin Supplies from the Iberian Peninsula and from Britain
The note below brings isotopic evidence indicating that the tin used in the Ancient Middle East
came from either the Iberian Peninsula or from Britain.

"ABSENT VOICES: THE STORY OF WRITING SYSTEMS IN THE WEST"
Rochelle Altman (New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press 2004)
Amongst other matters the authoress claims that a colony of Phoenician descent  in Britain
influenced the form of scripts used all the way through to Anglo-Saxon times. This may sound far-fetched but the writer is a known authority in her field and she presents an impressive and detailed argument.

What concerns us at present is the presence of Phoenicians in Britain and the mining of tin
and here too Rochelle Altman has something to say:
p.58
"bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and major tin deposits are rare. A small deposit, perhaps in Anatolia, was probably the original source for tin at the beginning of the Bronze Age around 3800-3400 BCE.  As the wielders of bronze weapons had a decided edge over their opponents it was only natural that people should search for tin deposits. A small tin  lode showed up in Sardinia. A good size deposit of high-grade ore  was found on the Iberian Peninsula. This too, was an insufficient supply for the demand. The only major deposit of high grade ore in the west of the Eurasian continent was the one in Cornwall. Whoever controlled the Cornish and Iberian [Spanish and Portuguese]
tin mines  held a near monopoly on an essential ore. Cornish tin was used for bronze and Cornish tin is what permitted the Bronze Age to continue and to spread. The bronze weapons, helmets, shields, and vessels of the ancient Near East, as well as the bronze statues of Classical Greece, used Cornish tin.10"
p.278 "10. At least four isotopic studies have been done on tin. Three of these studies  came to the conclusion that tin isotopes can be distinguished as to place of origin.  One study cautiously stated that, while it can be difficult to distinguish the isotopic profiles of Iberian and Cornish tin, the profiles of tin from Eastern sources  do not coincide with either. Another study, the English one is currently under dispute.
"Modern extraction techniques permit relatively low grade ore to be processed; the Iberian deposit on the coast of Portugal is once again in operation. The Cornish tin deposit however was very big; it finally was depleted during the 19 century CE.  For nearly 4500 years, whoever held Cornwall, held a near monopoly on an essential ore."

Rochelle Altman is saying that as far as science can at present determine the tin used in the Ancient Near East came mostly from either the Iberian Peninsula or Cornwall and that Cornwall  had the greater supply, which was better in quality, and more easier to extract.
It should also be pointed out that the Iberian source was in the Northwest, in Galatia (according to Strabo),  and depended on sea transportation for its distribution. The British Isles can almost been be seen from Galatia. Whoever sailed to one area in search of tin would almost certainly have been aware of the other.

Altman says that at first the monopoly on tin from both the Iberian Peninsula and Cornwall (Britain) was held by:
<<Iberians from the coastal area to the North and west of the Tagus River in what is today Portugal. The architecture of the stone "Beehive" houses  found in Ireland resemble the distinctive architecture of those found  at Vianno de Castelio and Citaia and are presumed to have been carried to Ireland by these sea-traders>>.
The area mentioned in Portugal was within the domain of Tartessos. This monopoly in both the Iberian Peninsula and in Cornwall was taken over by the Phoenicians.
Altman says that the Phoenicians took over around 1500 BCE.
Others would say that it was possibly as much as ca.500 or even more years later but whatever the case the Phoenicians did take control and their greatly increased intensified production rates were mostly felt in the Neo-Assyrian era.

3. Tin and Bronze From Cornwall
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba56/ba56feat.html
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/nice/arcnews.htm

Different ore sources have distinctive lead isotope ratios which can be used to provenance archaeological artefacts, and the Castell Coch artefacts were highly unusual in having very high lead isotope ratios of a sort that can only occur when uranium is present within the ore. Further analysis of the ratios provided the geological age of the deposit which allowed us to pinpoint the source of the ore even more accurately. Taken together, the data showed that these particular artefacts were made from copper ore that could only have come from one place in north-western Europe - Cornwall.
The Cornish provenance of the Castell Coch hoard and other non-Irish tools and weapons leads us directly to the pioneers of bronze, because it confirms that a mining tradition was established in Cornwall at the time of the invention of bronze, in an area that contains one of the richest tin fields in the world. Along with Afghanistan, Cornwall is one of only two possible major sources of the tin used in bronze throughout Europe after about 2000 BC. No prehistoric mines have yet been found in Cornwall but this is hardly surprising: the landscape has been eaten away by coastal erosion and turned upside down by the vast scale of the post-medieval tin industry. All prehistoric evidence may have been destroyed.




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