Ingots of tin, etched with Cypro-Minoan symbols and found off the coast of Israel, are over 3,000 years old and of Cornish origin, archaeologists say.
The 23 ingots, which date from the 12th or 13th century BC and were found in shipwrecks near Haifa, are the earliest evidence of the trading of the metal between Bronze Age settlements on the island that became Britain and Europe and the Middle East.
The metal was vital in the production of bronze, which was used to make weapons and armour.
The ingots likely found their way to “Israel” — around the time of the first recorded written mention, by the ancient Egyptians, of the word — on ships via Greece. Greek and Phoenician traders would have been sailing in that part of the Mediterranean.
