Weight metrology and its economic and social impact on Bronze Age Europe, West and South Asia

Project Information

WEIGHTANDVALUE

Grant agreement ID: 648055

DOI

10.3030/648055

Project closed

EC signature date 16 July 2015

Start date 1 August 2015

End date 31 July 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 901 427,84

EU contribution

€ 1 901 427,84

Coordinated by

GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITAT GOTTINGEN STIFTUNG OFFENTLICHEN RECHTS
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - WEIGHTANDVALUE (Weight metrology and its economic and social impact on Bronze Age Europe, West and South Asia)

Reporting period: 2020-10-01 to 2022-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project investigated the emergence of the use of weights and scales, and the economic and societal transformations brought about by this innovation during the Bronze Age in western Eurasia. This period, c. 3000–1000 BC, is sometimes considered as the era in which the first commercial trade emerged within a large geographical sphere. However, the most important evidence in this regard – i.e. weights and scales – have never been investigated systematically with a rigorous methodology. The main focus of the project was to investigate the scale of dissemination and use of weights in the Bronze Age world, by means of an integrated approach using archaeological data, 3D scanning and statistics. The project’s main objective was the identification of these devices in the archaeological record. So far, finds of potential weights were generally not identified, and are either ignored or insufficiently published. The study of balance weights requires specific methodologies, in particular statistical methods in order to extract meaningful information. The diversified expertise (Prehistoric Archaeology/Bronze Age European Archaeology, Aegean Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, South Asian Archaeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, Statistics, Experimental Archaeology, Material Science) represented within the project by team members and collaborators, and the use of specific methods and equipment, enabled the project team to change the present state of research significantly. Once a sound knowledge of the materials was achieved, the next objective was to conceptualize the significant practical and cognitive consequences of the introduction of weight metrology into the economic organization of trade, systems of value and early currency, as well as of individual and societal realities. This opened up the way to new hypotheses and provided a new interpretative framework for the European, West and South Asian early Metal Age. The project therefore contributed to a new understanding of economic history, the origins of a globalized world, the history of currency and cognitive changes in conceptualizations of material value. In this respect the WEIGHTANDVALUE project had a relevance for the understanding of the origins of our modern economic world and therefore of our present way of life.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Three classes of objects were important for the research project: weights, scales and weight-adjusted artefacts. As weights are rarely marked or inscribed, their identification is crucial. Of scales only (parts of the) balance beams or scales plates can survive in an archaeological context. Weight-adjusted or weight-regulated artefacts are objects like jewellery or bullion which were intentionally produced with a measured amount of material or were intentionally fragmented objects of various kinds. They adjust to a weight unit or fractions or multiples thereof when a large dataset is analysed by Cosine Quantogram Analysis. Such objects are always made of metal.
Ca. 3100 weights and ca. 500 potential weight-adjusted artefacts (in bronze, gold and silver), have been studied in fourteen different countries in 14 countries in Europe, Western and South Asia and North America. The identification of the final sample required screening a much larger number of objects, most of which were eventually discarded based on strict criteria. Around 90 % of the identified weights were formerly unpublished, meaning that no documentation (illustration and/or weight) was available. Both, the many research trips and the subsequent analysis carried out by the team members and the PI have considerably increased our knowledge of the early use of weighing equipment. The research has generated a very large mass of new data of formerly unknown balance weights, especially for temperate Europe, Mesopotamia and Indus Valley. Also smaller amounts of new data, e.g. from Britain, Anatolia and Egypt, contributed to a new understanding of the dissemination and impact of weight metrology. The weight of ca. 2500 bronze objects from Italy, Germany and Austria was collected from entries in publications and ca. 350 gold and ca. 150 silver objects were studied in eight countries.
The application of a rigorous analysis (by means of archaeological and statistical methods) is crucial in order to verify the object’s function. The application of frequency distribution and Cosine Quantogram Analysis as presented in the first published workshop and published papers has become the standard protocol in order to identify and study potential weights. A similar analytical method was developed for the identification of bullion currencies in prehistoric economies. The research has providing evidence, among others, for the earliest weights (pebbles with markings) of the first half of the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia, the existence of a pan-European weight system in the Bronze Age and widespread use of bronze currencies in Bronze Age Europe and silver currencies in Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Anatolia.
The study of archaeological data originating from many areas spanning the Atlantic Facade and the Indus allowed to compare developments in very different regions during the Bronze Age with different societal and technological organisation and complexity. This comparative perspective enabled the team to see connections between, for example, the early distribution of weights and the intensity of exchange of precious metals, which were potentially used as weight-regulated artefacts.
The impact of the introduction of weight metrology and early money on the conceptualisation of material value has been discussed. The verification and role market places, merchants and money has been debated within the project in second, third and fourth workshop which all have been published.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

It was indeed possible to identify a great amount of new weighing equipment in many regions between the Atlantic and the Indus. So far, these objects have been often ignored or misinterpreted. In some regions weights were identified during the project for the first time. Through the geographical, chronological and metrological analysis of the data it became possible to model the dissemination of the idea of weighing, its adoption or re-interpretation and the emergence of weighing systems. The statistically significant error overlap of early units between Mesopotamia and Europe implies a random propagation of error over time from a single original unit. Western Eurasian weight systems are consistent with the origin from a single unit which is to be located in Mesopotamia. Most interestingly, a Pan-European weight unit existed during the Bronze Age in Central Europe, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula.

The appearance of weighing technology seems to be connected to the introduction of metal currencies soon after. In Mesopotamia fragmented silver cut according to the weight unit were deposited in domestic hoards by ca. 2600 BC. Similar strategies were documented in Europe with the intentional fragmentation of bronze artefacts found in Late Bronze Age hoards in the second half of the second millennium BC which are consisted with the weight unit used. Hence, the introduction of weights and value regimes was followed by the introduction of “hack metal” as money. The objective conceptualisation of material value based on units of weight was apparently a phenomenon common to both literate and illiterate societies during the Bronze Age.

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