In a remote oasis, on the foothills of a dusty mountain, the first morning light shone through the sharp palm leaves and pierced through the faint smoke of last night’s fire. The sound of water bubbled and gurgled in the settlement’s meandering falaaj system whilst dragonflies busily chased each other in the water’s sparkling light.
Utur awoke early to begin his journey to the mine, ideally arriving before the midday heat. Word had reached the oasis that more sacred rock was needed.
A few days ago, the village chief, Gal, ate a feast with a foreign trader and negotiated the trade of sacred rock in return for jars of honey, two dozen donkeys, sacks of pomegranate and, as a guarantee, handfuls of gems. Gal and his brother, Khul, had found a new location many moons ago but had kept its location secret.
Utur was chosen to enter the mine first and during last night’s fire, Utur learned its location from Gal and Khul via the recitation of poems and incantations. The first began as:
Two close brothers, arm in arm,
Lost, looking for their mother.
Twin sons of the great sky king.
The smaller of the brothers,
Met an old man with a red stone ring:
Go towards the sun set he said,
Till you find where the large toad lies.
His blind left eye will show ahead
Where your rich mother hides.
After gulping much warm spring water, and dressed in a simple loincloth and head piece, Utur exited the cool oasis air which was by now alive with birds and buzzing with crickets. He held the pick-axe and squinted at the two mountainous peaks on the horizon where he knew he would find the old tree with a red marking. Gal and Khul would join him tomorrow.
World trade: goods and exports
Oman’s current export, petroleum, accounts for almost three quarters of its exported goods. Petr (rock) and il (illumination) is thus petrol or ‘light from the rock’. However, 4000 years ago, when the country was known as Magan, the country exported an entirely different type of rock – an epoch changing product which was a necessary precursor to the “illuminating rock” or “black gold” of today. Without the discovery and refinement of metal ore, there would be no eventual industrial revolution.
4000 years ago was the start of the bronze age. Bronze alloy requires two natural elements: copper and tin. Copper ore could be found without mining since it erupts close to the Earth’s surface.
For thousands of years it remained a highly prized good which was needed by early civilisation and eagerly desired by their legendary Kings such as Solomon and Gilgamesh and their grand plans. Copper was cold-hammered (whilst still in its original ore state) into basic shapes – for tools and primitive weapons. It was, in a sense, a more malleable type of rock in the stone age era.
But that era would change and with it, the history of mankind.
A new era
Bronze (possibly discovered by accident by potters) was far superior to copper and required heating, hammering and mixing with a much rarer metal, tin. Magan had large copper ore traces and its position in the Gulf granted it excellent access to the new developing empires. However, Magan didn’t have any tin resources; the peoples may not have known about this secret alchemical process. The bronze alloy mixing procedure – and the location of tin – was a trade secret of a few new cities which they guarded at all costs.
Copper mining settlements were dotted around Oman in locations as dispersed as Bahla, Ras al-Hadd and Ras al-Jinz.
After mining the precious green stone, these early settlements would have organised great caravans to trek across wadis, desert dunes and mountains finally reaching their destination a few seasons later – or perhaps longer. It took Bertrand Thomas no less than two months to cross the empty quarter and that was only half the distance.
The important destinations for copper were the new cities with their bustling smelters and workshops located in Mesopotamia, Turkey and the Levant. Oman didn’t have the sufficient fuel (wood) to melt copper. To produce one kilogram of copper required a room full to the brim of wood. The fertile crescent of Mesopotamia and Turkey did, however, have sufficient forests for fueling and so the new cities, naturally, emerged there. Also in Cyprus – a forested island and a key source of Copper and, in fact, where our word copper originates from, i.e. Latin for “Cypriot metal”: aes cyprium).
The copper mines in Oman were essential to this new civilisations. Cuneiform receipts from Mesopotamia mention Magan / Makkan and the copper imports.
Researchers have recently even been able to identify a “DNA” of Omani copper and have calculated from bronze artefacts found from Mesopotamia that a high percentage of copper in the bronze came from Magan.
Heading West, away from the Gulf, another precious of source raw materials was in Cornwall, England – a secret source of tin for the Phoenicians. (There are even theories that the route to Cornwall is hidden within Homer’s works.) Sailing all through the Mediterranean past the Iberian peninsula and up to the bleak and windswept cliffs of Cornwall would have been an arduous and risky journey. But worthwhile. According to translated records, tin could have a markup of well over 50,000%. Such was the advantage that Bronze gave to its inheritors.
When mixed correctly, Bronze is hard without being brittle and can be shaped and sharpened into a reliable tool – or a formidable weapon, such as a sword, thus making bronze an era-changing discovery for mankind.
Primitive stones and brittle copper knives were no match for the new, confident bronze-wielding armies.The weapons glistened brightly and reflected a clean light on its smooth surface. Smiths were able to work the surface and imbue the blades with patterns and symbols to heighten their power. Not only were the new weapons physically formidable, they were now sacred. The weapons would bring strength from spirit animals and evoke the warrior gods from the older hunter mythologies. Fuelled by alcohol and imperial fervour, these new bronze clad warriors slashed their way through rows of lesser men to establish new outposts and provinces in the name of their emperors and kings.
The bronze age saw the emergence of the first cities. The metal works required a huge demand on resources – trees for smelting and food for the ever-growing populations, the new arrivals and the feasts that retained them all. But the city could only survive if it could secure and guarantee the resources from the surrounding land. Thus came the notion of a state: hence came wars for resources and empires.
Bronze age art and fertility
Whatever man created, it needed a purpose and needed to be compatible with his understanding of the universe.
Early man had no scientific knowledge of his world and universe. He could only have grasped concepts of the world around him from what he knew from within himself; a primitive but intuitive understanding of the way things work: the relationship between male and female and the creation of new life: whether children, fruits or gems from the earth.
Considering the demand on resources, if he created something that did not kill or work the land, it needed to be of considerable significance.
When man’s relationship to the Earth switched from being a hunter-gatherer to an agriculturalist, the fertility cults flourished. He now needed the fertility gods more than the warrior gods. An emphasis on fertility shaped his understanding of the universe and thus influenced his prayers.
For early man, the ore in the ground represented seed in the uterus (Earth) and the base metals were considered to be various forms of gestation towards purity. The purest and ultimate form was gold.
To handle these precious stones from the Earth was an important task. A ritual. To keep harmony with the Earth, which man knew was greater than he, a miner needed to be chaste in order to enter the gynaecological mine. Often they were children.
Mythology and ornaments
Just as the falcon is the protector of the sky, for millennia the snake was considered to be (and worshipped as) the protector of the Earth. The snake lives underground amongst the moist Earth, the womb, and her children, the ores. The snake protected the embryos – and perhaps even fertilised them. The snake that can shed its skin represented new life and creation. The snake was highly regarded at that time for the new civilisations and their beliefs.
Man created symbolic ornaments and objects at the expense of tools or weapons. He created a great many snakes in copper and bronze which have been found in Oman. It seems metal’s inherent strength was as much symbolic as it was physical.
The symbology of the snake from this period still survives to this very day and is still a powerful symbol – now a symbol of trust and life. Pharmacies still use the symbol of snakes intertwining a staff.
Oman’s role in history
History grants us a unique perspective – Cornish miners and Omani miners had a lot in common, even though they would never have met each other or even known of their counterpart’s existence. But even though they were worlds apart, they both lived in harsh, dramatic landscapes, mining precious resources for future kings and the building of empires. Trading with explorers and traders from far away lands who had sailed past sea creatures and fought barbarians with their new swords. Who had found new worlds and created civilisations and cultures that would influence us all.
Empires rise and fall and as new ones rise with their new tools and technology, raw materials are needed and thus the cycle continues.
Sources
Exploiting the Earth – Richard Cowan
The Forge and the Crucible – Mircea Eliade
Coal of Newcastle to Copper of Magan – Lloyd Weeks
Oman Heritage: An Early Cradle of Arabian Civilisation (Conference)
Copper snakes in Oman – Salut Museum
Mining and capitalism – Lewis Mumford
About Copper – Dartmouth University
Archilogical studies of Oman (Bergbau, Universität Heidelberg)