PLANO-CONVEX INGOTS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE IN THE ECONOMY OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE

Transforming raw metal into ingots created an easy way to transport the metal from the mining site and to establish standards in their trade. During the Early/Middle Bronze Age transition, the standardised ingots with fixed denomination, like neck-rings and rib ingots, were replaced with the heterogenous plano-convex ingot or casting cake (German: Gusskuchen) in Central Europe. In the Late Bronze Age, the plano-convex ingot, together with the ox-hide ingot, is the most common bar type for copper and their alloys in Europe and the Near East. It was formed in an open casting process by pouring molten metal into a shallow pit in the ground or in a specific casting form. Most of the plano-convex ingots from Late Bronze Age hoards are fragmented. This is the result of a targeted breaking in red-hot state, immediately after casting or after a later heating in a charcoal fire when they were traded, processed, hoarded or sacrificed. Several fracture patterns of plano-convex ingots or their weight ratios in European hoards suggest that these could embody a premonetary currency. How plano-convex ingots were possibly integrated into the Bronze Age weight-money system is the subject of present investigations.
Author(s): Modl, Daniel (Universalmuseum Joanneum)

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