- Fulvia Lo Schiavo –
Figure 10.7 Funtana Coberta of Ballao (Cagliari) hoard: the container and the oxhide ingots.suggests. As to the later pieces, there is no reason to believe that they were in use in the
islands much later than the eleventh–tenth centuries bc when more plano-convex ingots
are in circulation.
Complete or fragmentary oxhide ingots were found in more than 30 sites (31 listed
and discussed in Lo Schiavo 2009; four more sites in Lo Schiavo 2011), but the number is
destined to grow according to the archaeological research and analyses. At the moment,
only four oxhide ingots in Sardinia are complete: three from Serra Ilixi-Nuragus (Nuoro)
and one from S. Antioco of Bisarcio-Ozieri; all the others are fragmentary and found
generally in hoards, mostly hidden in nuraghi and Nuragic villages, temples and
sanctuaries.
THE CYPRIOTS IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEANWhile the presence/infl uence of the Mycenaeans in the West is mostly evidenced by a
peculiar new pottery style and technique, the Cypriot presence/infl uence in the West is
overwhelming in the domain of metallurgy, almost as a modern trade divided into clear-
cut spheres of infl uence and “monopoly.” A few years ago this assertion would have been
censured for being overly modernistic. Nowadays, thorough study of the copper oxhide
ingots and tin trade has built up a very different pattern from a simplistic ex Oriente Lux
mode and added to the incredible – though preliminary – conclusion that even if the
bulk of Cypriot copper was produced with a view to the western trade, it is not excluded
that at least some of the contractors – specifi cally Nuragic people – covered the distance
and came to the source, carrying the ingots aboard their own ships and perhaps acting as
go-betweens for LBA emporia on the route in Crete (Kommos) and in Sicily (Cannatello,
Lipari and possibly also Thapsos) (Lo Schiavo et al. 2009). A western-type Thapsos sword
in the Uluburun wreck, though up to now an isolated item, can be considered a trace of
the presence of traders/sailors of other western provenance.
Though extreme, this framework is feasible to explain both the overwhelming presence
of oxhide ingots in Sardinia, and of smithing tools (sledge-hammers, raising-hammers,
tongs, shovels), double-edged instruments (massive and simple double-axes, axe-adzes,