During Crete's Middle Minoan thassalocracy, plus the Mycenaean ascendancy, and the subsequent era (LBIIIC) of the Sea Peoples - tin was continuously available in large quantities in Tuscany (based on a paper published in 2017).
quote from the 2017 paper, by Auro Pampaloni:
www.academia.edu/34237795/The_tin_of_Campigliese_40_centuries_of_usagealternate source for the 2017 paper:
www.minoanatlantis.com/pubs/Pampaloni_2017_The_tin_of_Campigliese_40_centuries_of_usage.pdfThe Tin of Campigliese: 40 centuries of usage.
Conclusions
We determined that the tin of Campigliese was extracted and used throughout the Bronze Age in a fair
amount. This amount, (comparable over time to that of the Kestel mine in Tauro, which produced
5,000 tons of tin for 1,000 years) can be estimated at about 3,400 tons very hypothetically72 as follows:
• EBA73 (2,300 - 1,700 BC) use only local: 300 tons for 600 years (50 t/century);
• MBA (1,700 - 1,300 BC) local use and possibly eastward exports through Cypriot / Levantine
mining: 600 tons for 400 years (150 t/century);
• RBA-FBA (1,300 - 1,000 BC) local and Mediterranean area: 900 tons for 300 years (300t/
century);
• EIA (1,000 to 700 BC) local and Mediterranean-centered area: 600 tons for 300 years (200t/
century);
• Etruscan and Roman period (700 - 100 BC74) only for figurative bronzes production: 1000 tons
for 600 years (166 t/century);
So we have basically two periods: the first one in which bronze (and consequently the tin) represents
the primary metal for any metallic object whether it is for civil, military or artistic use whether it is
figured or not. In the second, which coincides with Iron Age, where all the objects of civil and military
use are iron made, the bronze will only serve for figurative bronzes.
During the EBA the tin was still available for the Middle East from the Taurus mountains,...
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