Tin

• Tin was mined in the Ancient World from the start of the Bronze Age, in c.3,000 BCE.
• A polished Tin coating was sometimes used to make Roman Mirrors.

Bronze

• Once it was discovered that Copper could be hardened by smelting with Tin to produce Bronze, the demand for Tin expanded.
• Tin followed the Amber Trade, and travelled along the same route, the Amber Road.

Location of Tin Mines during the Bronze Age

• Germany:
  • Erzgebirge, the ‘Ore Mountains’, which form the border between modern Germany and the Czech Republic. Tin mining is thought to have started here around c.2500 BCE.
• Spain:
  • Northwest Iberia.
• France:
  • Brittany
• Britannia:
  • Cornwall and Devon.
• Turkey:
  • Kestel Tin Mines, in the Taurus Mountains have been dated to the third millennium BCE.
  • The 40 Ingots of Tin weighing one ton in the Uluburun Shipwreck which sank c.1300 BCE, may have been from Kestel.

Location of Tin Mines during the Roman Empire

• Gallia Lugdunensis
  • Brittany.
• Britannia:
  • Cornwall and Devon.
  • Ictis and Mictis were the Tin Islands in Britannia described as the centre of the Ancient Tin Trade by Diodorus Siculus writing between 60-30 BCE.