Monganaut wrote:
Yeah, saw that. Preservation in pics is amazing. No plans to raise it, thinking is it's to fragile. Makes you wonder if these rocked up at Tintagel etc... whilst trading.
One of the great lost books from antiquity is an account of a journey made by a Greek - Pytheas - to find where Tin came from. He supposedly circumnavigated Britain, travelled extensively inland and left a written account of what he found. We know about it because other ancient writers refer and quote from it but the original is long gone. Only from about 325bce, but it would be fascinating to have another account on top of Caesar's. 400 odd years before the Roman occupation. Sigh. It may come to light, they're still regularly finding new stuff.
Apparently supply lines were so convoluted that places were trading with each other without knowing the other existed. As well as Britain and Tin, there was extensive trade with China and India even in the ancient world - but no one in a position to see where all this stuff came from. My favourite is the growing conviction that Samurai swords and those made in Toledo used steel imported from the same region of India. Toledo steel swords - favoured by Hannibal and his attack on Rome... linked to Bushido and all that.
