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Two Shipwrecks: Trade Before and After Coins

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Two Shipwrecks: Trade Before and After Coins

Use an archaeologist's field notes and a cargo table to see how ancient ships moved goods, payments and ideas.

Field notes from the seafloor

These field notes are made up, but every find in them comes from real excavations. Read them, then answer the questions.

Field Notes: Two Ships on the Seafloor

1Day 1, off Uluburun, on the southern coast of Turkey. Today I dove to the place where a merchant ship sank about 1300 BCE. A sponge diver spotted strange metal "biscuits" on the seafloor here in 1982, and archaeologists spent more than ten summers raising the ship's cargo.

2Day 2. The cargo list reads like a map of the ancient world. The ship carried about 10 tons of copper, much of it in flat slabs called ingots, shaped like stretched animal hides, and about 1 ton of tin. Melted together at about ten parts copper to one part tin, the two metals make bronze, the most important metal of the age. The ship also carried disks of blue glass, logs of dark ebony wood, elephant tusks, jars of sticky tree resin, amber beads and a gold scarab carved with the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

3Day 3. Something is missing: coins. The first coins would not be made until about 600 BCE, in Lydia. Instead, divers found many stone and metal weights for balance scales, in several sets, along with pieces of scrap silver and gold. Divers also found a small hinged wooden writing board that once held a layer of wax for notes.

4Day 6, off Kyrenia, on the northern coast of Cyprus. This wreck is a small Greek merchant ship that sank about 300 BCE. It carried hundreds of wine jars called amphorae, many of them from the island of Rhodes, along with millstones for grinding grain and thousands of almonds. Divers also found a few bronze coins. Four sets of cups, bowls and spoons suggest a crew of about four.

5Day 7. These two ships sank about a thousand years apart. Sailors on both met traders who spoke other languages in every port. Historians think that around 800 BCE, Greeks began writing with an alphabet they adapted from the letters used by Phoenician traders.

1.

Why did the divers find no coins on the Uluburun ship?

A. The crew hid their coins on land before the ship sailed.B. Lydia banned the use of its coins outside the kingdom.C. It sank about 700 years before the first coins were made.D. Bronze coins melted away after centuries in salt water.

2.

What do the balance-scale weights and scrap silver suggest about how traders on the Uluburun ship paid?

A. They paid with paper notes that were later lost at sea.B. They paid by weighing metal against weights of set sizes.C. They paid with goods, since metal was not yet valued.D. They paid with stamped coins brought from Lydia.

3.

Use the field notes.

The Kyrenia ship sank about years after the first coins were made in Lydia.

4.

Each trade below is made up. Sort each one by how the buyer pays.

5.

Why would a ship carry both copper and tin in about a ten-to-one amount?

A. Buyers could melt them together to make bronze for tools and weapons.B. Copper was for selling, and tin was used to pay port taxes.C. Tin was much heavier than copper, so less of it was needed as ballast.D. Tin was used to repair ships, and copper was used to pay the crew.

Read the cargo table

Use the table and the field notes.

Some Uluburun cargo and where it probably came from
Good	Probable source
Copper ingots	Cyprus
Tin ingots	Uncertain; possibly Central Asia
Blue glass disks	Egypt or the coast of Canaan
Ebony logs	Tropical Africa, by way of Egypt
Amber beads	Northern Europe, near the Baltic Sea
Gold scarab	Egypt

Archaeologists identify sources by testing the chemistry of metals, glass and amber and by comparing objects with finds on land.

6.

Which conclusion is best supported by the table?

A. The ship had sailed to northern Europe to buy amber.B. Most of the cargo came from the island of Cyprus.C. Goods from several distant regions met on one ship.D. Ebony trees grew along the coast of southern Turkey.

7.

A student says, "The gold scarab proves the ship belonged to Queen Nefertiti." What is the best response?

A. That is right, since most of the cargo came from Egypt.B. That is wrong, since Nefertiti ruled Lydia and never traded by sea.C. That is right, since the scarab carries her name in gold.D. That is wrong, since one Egyptian object cannot show who owned the ship.

8.

Compare the two wrecks. What changed in how traders could pay between about 1300 BCE and about 300 BCE?

A. Traders on the Uluburun ship paid with gold coins from Egypt.B. Traders could pay with coins of set value instead of weighing metal.C. Traders on the Kyrenia ship weighed copper ingots for each deal.D. By 300 BCE, ships carried coins but no cargo for sale.

9.

Which detail from the field notes best shows that trade routes moved ideas as well as goods?

A. Greeks adapted letters used by Phoenician traders.B. The Kyrenia ship carried thousands of almonds.C. The Uluburun ship carried about 10 tons of copper.D. The Kyrenia ship carried millstones for grinding grain.

10.

Claim: long-distance trade worked well even before coins were invented. Do you agree? Use at least two details from the field notes or the table as evidence, and explain how traders paid and what coins changed.