Purposes
It is uncertain whether the oxhide ingots served as a form of currency. Ingots found in excavations at Mycenae are now part of the exhibits of the Numismatic Museum of Athens. Cemal Pulak argues that the weights of the Uluburun ingots are similar enough to have allowed “a rough but quick reckoning of a given quantity of raw metal prior to weighing.” But George Bass proposes, via the Gelidonya ingots, whose weights are approximately the same if somewhat lower than the Uluburun ingot weights, that the weights were not standard and thus the ingots were not a currency. Another theory is that the oxhide shape, as well as the bun shape that some ingots took, was a visual statement that the ingot at hand is part of a legitimate trade. In Sardinia, oxhide ingot fragments have been found in hoards with bun ingots and scrap metal and, in some cases, in a metallurgical workshop. Citing this evidence, Vasiliki Kassianidou argues that the oxhide ingots “were meant to be used rather than to be kept as prestige goods.”
Read more about this topic: Oxhide Ingot
Famous quotes containing the word purposes:
“So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fallen on th’inventors’ heads.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There has been and always will be plenty of arguments about the usefulness and harm of the spreading of the Bible. In my view the Bible will continue to cause harm when used in a dogmatic and fantastic manner; it will do good when used for didactic purposes and with sensitivity.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)