Copper ingots from Crete and Mycenae, displayed at the Numismatic Museum of Athens.
Copper ingot from Zakros, Crete, displayed at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
Protector of the ingot, bronze, Enkomi, Cyprus.
Oxhide ingots are heavy (20–30 kg) metal slabs, usually of copper but sometimes of tin, produced and widely distributed during the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age (LBA). Their shape resembles the hide of an ox with a protruding handle in each of the ingot’s four corners. Early thought was that each ingot was equivalent to the value of one ox.[1]: 138 However, the similarity in shape is simply a coincidence. The ingots' producers probably designed these protrusions to make the ingots easily transportable overland on the backs of pack animals.[1]: 140 Complete or partial oxhide ingots have been discovered in Sardinia, Crete, Peloponnese, Cyprus, Cannatello in Sicily, Boğazköy in Turkey (ancient Hattusa, the Hittite capital), Qantir in Egypt (ancient Pi-Ramesses), and Sozopol in Bulgaria.[2][3] Archaeologists have recovered many oxhide ingots from two shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey (one off Uluburun and one in Cape Gelidonya).
^ abPulak, Cemal (2000), "The Copper and Tin Ingots from the Late Bronze Age Shipwreck at Uluburun", in Yalçin, Ünsal (ed.), Anatolian Metal I, Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, p. 138, ISBN 9783921533796
^Muhly, J. D. (1986). "The Role of Cyprus in the Economy of the Eastern Mediterranean". In Karageorghis, V. (ed.). Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium "Cyprus between the Orient and the Occident" Nicosia, 8–14 Sept. 1985. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. pp. 55–6. ISBN 9789963364077.
^Lo Schiavo, Fulvia (2005). "Oxhide Ingots in the Mediterranean and Central Europe". In Lo Schiavo, Fulvia; et al. (eds.). Archaeometallurgy in Sardinia. Montagnac: Éditions Monique Mergoil. p. 307. ISBN 9782907303958.
IngotsOxhideingots are heavy (20–30 kg) metal slabs, usually of copper but sometimes of tin, produced and widely distributed during the Mediterranean...
Mehmet Çakir's sketching of “the metal biscuits with ears” recognized as oxhideingots. Turkish sponge divers were often consulted by the Institute of Nautical...
Selargius (CA)". Quaderni (27): 147–200. "Revisiting Late Bronze Age oxhideingots – Meanings questions and perspectives". Fundoni, Giovanna. "Le ceramiche...
Langdon Bay (Kent) hoard Middle Bronze Age migrations (ancient Near East) Oxhideingot Shropshire bulla Timeline of human evolution Tollense valley battlefield...
trade with the East, as evidenced by the discovery at Borgo of a copper oxhideingot and some cobalt beads, goods coming from Cyprus and the Aegean, respectively...
cultures used standard-sized ingots and tokens such as knife money to store and transfer value. Phoenician metal ingots had to be stamped with the name...
between these two ancient populations. Of particular interest are also the Oxhideingot, which perhaps came from Cyprus and was discovered in various locations...
Madrid: Complutense University of Madrid. "Revisiting Late Bronze Age oxhideingots: Meanings, questions and perspectives". Serena Sabatini, University...
was used as a currency for these exchanges, but it is thought that oxhide-shaped ingots of copper, produced in Cyprus, may have functioned as a currency...
culture, early Bronze Age culture, Europe c. 1300 BCE firewood dating; see Oxhideingot from the Uluburun shipwreck, south coast of Turkey 148 BCE, 147 BCE Corlea...
from the Baltic Sea, small bronze figures portraying African beasts, oxhideingots and weapons from Eastern Mediterranean, Mycenaean ceramics. It has been...
Ling, Johan; Stos-Gale, Zofia (February 2015). "Representations of oxhideingots in Scandinavian rock art: the sketchbook of a Bronze Age traveller?"...
(probably Cyprus) reached as far west as Sardinia, where five typical oxhideingots were first turned up by a plough in 1857, at the foot of a demolished...
ceremonial assemblages. Lead isotope analyses indicate that copper oxhideingots and fragments from these hoards originated in Cyprus. Large quantities...
copper is melted in a furnace and then reduced and cast into billets and ingots; lower-purity scrap is refined by electroplating in a bath of sulfuric acid...
use of standards in Cyprus begun from the ancient times. Copper oxhideingots (ingots of copper in the shape of a cow hide) were seen in Cyprus between...
seems to have been in use already in the late Bronze Age. Copper ingots shaped like oxhides have been recovered from shipwrecks such as at Uluburun, Iria...
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