August 28, 2008

Minoans in Germany

Geo.de interview with Hans Peter Duerr:
Liegen die wirklich spannenden Funde also unter dem spätmittelalterlichen Rungholt?

Zumindest die überraschenderen. Es gab offenbar verschiedene Vorgängersiedlungen aus dem vierten oder dritten Jahrhundert vor Christus. Ein Fund hat uns nachgerade schockiert: Wir sind auf Überreste levantinischer und vor allem minoischer Transport- und Gebrauchskeramik aus dem Kreta des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts vor Christus gestoßen. Darunter fanden sich auch Scherben zweier Drei-fußkochtöpfe. Das legt die Vermutung nahe, dass es bereits um 1400 vor Christus Schiffe gab, die von Kreta aus die nordfriesische Küste ansteuerten.

Könnte es sich nicht um Antiquitäten handeln, die ein neuzeitliches Schiff an Bord hatte?

Nein. Unsere Funde lagen unter einer bronzezeitlichen Torfschicht, die sich vermutlich schon 1200 vor Christus gebildet hat. Zwar wurden diese Moorböden bei der Besiedlung im Mittelalter vielerorts abgetragen - aber keineswegs dort, wo Warften, also Hauspodeste, aufgeworfen wurden. Und an genau einer solchen Stelle haben wir die antike Keramik entdeckt! Die Gefäße, die wir gefunden haben, waren auch höchstwahrscheinlich kein Handelsgut, das über Zwischenhändler nach Nordfriesland gelangt sein könnte. Die wertlose Gebrauchskeramik gehörte mit großer Sicherheit zu einer Schiffsausstattung.

Was könnte die Minoer aus Kreta im 14. Jahrhundert vor Christus in die Nordseegelockt haben?

Es war das Zinn aus Cornwall, wie anerkanntermaßen 1000 Jahre später zu Zeiten des Pytheas von Massalia. Das brauchten die Mittelmeervölker zur Herstellung von Bronze. Etwa 1700 vor Christus kam aufgrund kriegerischer Auseinandersetzungen im Orient immer weniger Zinn aus Afghanistan nach Kreta. Statt über Zwischenhändler suchten die Minoer offenbar den direkten Weg - und fanden ihn wohl auch. Und waren sie erst einmal auf der britischen Insel, dann war es auch nicht mehr allzu weit zum "Bernsteinland" an der nordfriesischen Küste, aus dem die Mykener den magischen "Sonnenstein", "die Tränen der Götter", bezogen.

A related article in Focus.de:
Nach jahrelangen Forschungen legt Ethnologe Hans Peter Duerr sensationelle Ergebnisse vor: Die Minoer entdeckten Deutschland

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Bei seinen Ausgrabungen im Watt stießen Duerr und sein Team auf Spuren antiker Seeleute und Händler. In Kreta hergestellte Trink- und Essgefäße entrissen sie dem Schlick. Dazu eine Lanzenspitze, Weihrauch, Kopalharz und Lapislazuli. Den Fang krönte der erstmalige Fund eines minoischen Siegels außerhalb der Ägäis mit eingeritzten Zeichen der Linear-A-Schrift.

Duerr gab die Artefakte zur Auswertung an Experten. Die Ergebnisse untermauern seine These. „Dass die Minoer in die Nordsee fuhren, ist sehr gut möglich – so schwer war das nicht“, bestätigt Walter Burkert, Doyen der Altphilologen von der Universität Zürich.

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In dieser natürlichen Einbettung sowie dem Umstand, dass neben wenigen Luxusgütern vor allem gewöhnliche Haushalts- und Transportgefäße zu Tage kamen, sieht Duerr „sichere Indizien, dass eine kretische Expedition vor etwa 3300 Jahren in die Nordsee gekommen sein muss“. Während Wertgegenstände durchaus von Hand zu Hand getauscht worden sein können, scheidet diese Möglichkeit für Nutzgeschirr aus – es lohnt die Mühen nicht.

13 comments:

  1. Cool - so are there any Y-DNA R1b1b2 remains to be found?

    Reminds me of Ceide Fields in the West of Ireland - a Neolithic settlement from 5,000 yo discovered under a peat bog, complete with megalithic tombs.
    http://www.museumsofmayo.com/ceide1.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9ide_Fields

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  2. Surely this does not mean that there were Minoans in North Frisia - only that a Minoan pot had been traded across a considerable distance and then was thought valuable enough to bury as a grave-good.
    It may be described as a 'wertlose Gebrauchskeramik' but would have had a value because of its exoticness.

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  3. Very very interesting finding certainly. I am not aware of other so old known remains showing so directly Eastern trade connections, except in Eastern Iberia, and these are very rare.

    Nevertheless, it is known that, c. 1300 BCE, SE Iberian civlization of El Argar adopts the Aegean burial style of pithos (burial in large jars). And certainly I am fully in agreement with the claim that Eastern Mediterraneans were then in much need of tin, and that this was found only, in great ammounts, in Atlantic Europe (Galicia and Cornwall). This scarcity eventually led to the devlopement of steel, what began the Iron Age. It is very possible that the Eastern Mediterranean peoples were by then cut off from their Atlantic sources (though the details are very obscure, the long list of apparent conflicts in the late 2nd milennium BCE seems related).

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  4. A systematic Y-DNA testing program is obviously called for in North Friesland!

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  5. The timing makes you wonder. It would seem to predate the Phoenicians??? Tin mining is guesstimated to go back to 2150 BC in Cornwall? Who were the miners and where did the tin go?? Certainly Egypt had the culture and technology, but I've never read anything suggesting they were major seafarers, except for the Nile? These certainly weren't hunter/gatherers, so what culture did they come from??

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  6. The timing makes you wonder. It would seem to predate the Phoenicians???

    Yes. Though the Phoenicians seem to have taken advantage of the power vacuum of the early Iron Age and set sail directly to southern Iberia, founding Gadir (11th century by tradition, 9th century by archaeology). They knew what they were looking for.

    There was Bronze Age tech since c. 1800 BCE in Iberia as well as in Central Europe. And it was not for the most part arsenium "pseudo-bronze": tin was available.

    The main sources were Galicia (NW Iberia) and Cornwall (SW Britain). I think that El Argar, once "Hellenized" c. 1500 BCE (I said before "1300" but that's wrong), tried to secure the land route to Galicia by colonizing and fortifying La Mancha (Motillas) in order to replace the possible control that Zambujal (aka VNSP) civilization (in Portugal) probably exerted via the Megalithic network and its own strategical position beyond Gibraltar. It is possible that they also attempted to seize the naval route and it is possible that Greeks were involved directly (scarce direct evidence though).

    Tin mining is guesstimated to go back to 2150 BC in Cornwall? Who were the miners and where did the tin go??

    I'm not sure about the date; 2150 seems a little too early to me. But for what we know of the historical period, the miners were locals who worked individually or in gangs and who sold the tin to the Mediterranean traders who frequently visited their coasts.

    Certainly Egypt had the culture and technology, but I've never read anything suggesting they were major seafarers, except for the Nile? These certainly weren't hunter/gatherers, so what culture did they come from??

    Yes, Egypt doesn't seem to have been involved in the naval trade directly. The traders would have been Greeks/Cretans (in the Bronze Age) and later Phoenicians. It is possible that there were contacts with Cyprus and, one could think, "special" island civilizations such as Malta and Cycladic in earlier times but the evidence is very limited.

    There were also surely local western traders, at least before c. 1300 BCE (time of great changes). There are clear economic connections spanning from the Baltic to North Africa already in the Chalcolithic period (spread of Megalithism first, then also Bell Beaker "guild"). If I'm not wrong, there may have been growing conflicts between the Western network and the Mediterranean one and this may have been largely triggered by the relevance that tin acquired in the Bronze Age (late in the east, early/middle in the west).

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  7. Didn't answer this:

    ...where did the tin go??

    Certainly to Western and Central European bronze metallurgians but more interestingly to Greece (and through them to other Eastern Mediterranean destinations).

    The connection of Al Argar B (c. 1500-1300 BCE) with Greece is very clear: they adopted a Cretan/Mycenanean burial style (pithos) but you can also see an Iberian burial style (tholos) transposed to Greece. Notice that, while the tholos tomb has precursors in Cyprus and Syria, these were not tombs and anyhow they had vanished long before the time this burial style arrived to Greece. Iberia and specifically El Argar seem the most likely origin therefore.

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  8. I am very interested in Minoans and i don't understand German. Is there a English version of this post?

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  9. I used Google translator. Did not get everything but at least an idea yes. Basically there's a Minoan transport pottery item found in NW Germany and the author argue for the tin trade to have been behind it.

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  10. Some translation of the first part:

    So the really exciting findings are lying under the late-medieval Rungholt?
    At least the most surprising. Obviously there are several preceding settlements from the 4rth and 3rd century BC. One find did almost upset us: we came upon remains of levantine and especially minoan ceramics for transportation and daily use from Crete, 13th and 14th century BC. Among this, sherds of two tripod coockingpots. That's why we suppose ships traveling already 1400 BC from Crete to the coast of northern Frisia.

    Would this be antiqities, transported by a modern ship?
    No. Our findings were lying under a bronze-age layer of peat, build up - we suspect - already 1200 BC. Indeed during settlement in the middle ages, most of these turflayers were dug off - but nowhere in places to be used for wharfs and hauses. And exactly at such a place we discovered the antique ceramics! The pots we found, were highly likely not tradewares, finding their way to northern Frisia by commision-agents. The valueless ceramics for daily use did belong with great certainty to the equipment of a ship.

    What could have tempted the Minoans from Crete in the North Sea in the 14th century BC?
    That was the tin from Cornwall [etcetera]

    So, probably a little bit more than one pot.

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  11. What was found: "transport" and "every-day-usage" (convenience) ceramics from the Levant and, more importantly, Minoan Crete - which would be used and found on a ship, but would normally not be traded long distances over land because of its crude and insignificant appearance. Containers for drinking and eating, lance tips, incense, lapis lazuli (perhaps from Afghanistan?), and a seal with linear-A inscription were among the items.

    I think the combination of finds clearly points to a one-time, concentrated "transaction" from a source like a ship.

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  12. Yes Eurologist, that's almost a translation of especially the first paraghaph of the second part.
    Both english and german are not my mothertongue. Reading no problem, but alas, translating too timeconsuming for doing it all.
    What i can add now from the articles, is that it wasn't far from the British islands to Frisia, northern coastal areas where amber came from, beloved by the people of Mykene. That it was possible for Minoans very well to navigate the North Sea about 3300 years ago. And that the finds were of almost no value in exchanging goods.
    This added, you have the content of the articles as good as complete.

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