#MAREMonday 20

On 06.03.2023 we present the 20th session of our online lecture series with a contribution by

Sara Macke
(Department of Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel)

Bronze Age Stone Anchors of the Eastern Mediterranean –
Considering provenance through a geoarchaeological approach

Abstract:

Sara Macke^a, Assaf Yasur-Landau^a,b, Ehud Galili^b,c, Gal Yasur⁴, Tami Zilberman⁴, Ruth Shahack-Gross^a,b

^a Department of Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
^b Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
^c Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
^d The Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel

The Middle and Late Bronze Ages (ca. 2000-1200 BCE) saw great expansion of international maritime trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. Although networks of interactions and trade goods from these periods are commonly studied, stone anchors remain as an often-overlooked artifact type. Bronze Age stone anchors are commonly found during underwater survey and excavation, and have been found as part of shipwreck assemblages, harbor sites, and occasionally within land archaeological contexts. In past work, typology based on shape and rock type has been used to suggest maritime connections. This paper will discuss difficulties and propose a new method for provenancing stone anchors.

A significant obstacle to a typological approach is that as stone anchor assemblages are increasingly being identified underwater, it has become apparent that any type of anchor would be used as necessary, and ships carried a compliment of anchors of different sizes and weights. This difficulty in associating an “ethnicity” to an anchor by shape alone is one of the motivating factors of this work. From the geological side, stone anchors are commonly made of aeolianite or carbonate rocks (limestone or chalk) that occur throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and cannot be easily separated to micro-regional origins. However, with detailed characterization of rocks, subtle mineralogical, geochemical, and petrographic distinctions can be made, narrowing down possibilities for geographic origins.

While previous research has utilized some micro-geological techniques to propose provenance of such anchors (e.g. petrography and XRD), this work employs and synthesizes several lines of mineralogical and geochemical evidence including bulk mineralogy, isotopic, elemental, and rock petrographic analyses. These analyses were conducted on several groups of stone anchors found along the Carmel coast of Israel, as well as on rock references collected from carbonate formations and aeolianite/beachrock outcrops from various coastal regions of Israel. In this paper results of these analyses will be presented which provide insights into several aspects of the Bronze Age stone anchor industry, including production and distribution.