LOOSE CHANGE: APRIL 10, 2022

Four 3,200-year-old lead ingots found in a shipwreck off the coast of Israel point to the existence of previously unknown Bronze Age trade links in the Mediterranean Sea, reports Judith Sudilovsky for the Jerusalem Post.

It was a bit of a detective story, study co-author Naama Yahalom-Mack, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, tells the Times of Israel's Amanda Borschel-Dan. We started from the markings and went on to the metal itself to understand where it comes from. First of all what it is, then to see in isotopic analysis that the lead's ‘fingerprint' points us to Sardinia.

Divers discovered the ingots in a shipwreck near the ancient city (and modern town) of Caesarea in the late 1980s. How the metal made its way from Sardinia to Cyprus, which is located more than 1,550 miles away, is unclear. The ingots' existence doesn't have to mean direct trade between the two countries, [but] it might, writes Ruth Schuster for Haaretz.

During the Bronze Age, Cyprus had access to a steady supply of copper. But it lacked lead and tin, both of which were needed to smelt bronze. The team's analysis suggests that the Cypriots traded copper for lead ore or smelted metal from Sardinia. Once in Cyprus, the lead was stamped with Cypro-Minoan markings—rebranded, as co-author Assaf Yasur-Landau, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa, describes it to Haaretz—before being shipped further afield to Caesarea and other ports across the Levant.

To read the complete article, see:
Imported Lead Ingots Offer Evidence of Complex Bronze Age Trade Networks (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bronze-age-metal-trade-extended-for-thousands-of-miles-across-the-mediterranean-180979642/)

The discovery of two punch marked coins of the Sangam era, with symbols of sea turtle, marked the first of its kind find in the archaeological history of Adichanallur, a historic site located in the lower valley of Tamirabarani in Srivaikuntam taluk, Thoothukudi district.

Adichanallur was largely known as an ancient burial mound where funerary urns were found.

The site was first excavated by a German archaeologist Dr Jagor in 1876.

Each of the punch marked coins weighed about five grams and with these findings, it would further augment an archaeological survey of prehistoric settlements at Adichanallur. However, the recovered coins were sent to metallurgy experts in Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli for testing, the ASI Director told DT Next.

To read the complete article, see:
Adichanallur coins find suggests early habitation (https://www.dtnext.in/News/TamilNadu/2022/04/04050353/1360982/Adichanallur-coins-find-suggests-early-habitation.vpf)

Olympic medalist Tony Martin is auctioning off the silver medal he won at London 2012 to raise funds for children in Ukraine.

In an Instagram post Sunday, the German cyclist said it felt wrong "to sit on the couch and accept the situation" after seeing pictures of what has been happening in Ukraine since the start of Russia's invasion.

He said money raised from the auction would go to Wir helfen Kindern -- a foundation that would support the children and their families. "I pay my deepest respect to everybody who helps the people that need to be protected the most: the Ukrainian kids and their families," he wrote. "I also want to do my small part and help."

To read the complete article, see:
Former cyclist Tony Martin to auction off Olympic medal to raise funds for Ukrainian children (https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/sport/tony-martin-cycling-medal-ukraine-spt-intl/index.html)

One of the first things Sotheby's needed to do in the age of Zoom was change how it conducted its auctions to avoid the perils of other in-person events. (Like the opera, Stewart says.) While phone bidders have long been a staple of most sales, the highest-profile auctions had largely viewed the internet as an afterthought, he says. It would've been like a high school production with a webcam.

When Sotheby's auctions went online in June 2020, their livestreams felt like a cross between Downton Abbey and an energetic CNN broadcast. (With Covid restrictions easing, live audiences are returning.) Sotheby's chief auctioneer, Olly Barker, was fitted with a newscaster's earpiece to ensure the production booth could relay the latest bids to him. The set featured six flat-screens showing rooms in New York, Hong Kong and London fielding bids over the phone, the telecast switching back and forth from Barker and the phone rooms as a news anchor might with reporters in the field. Sotheby's highest-profile auctions now attract close to 2 million views online, up from a few thousand in recent years. Last year, 92% of all bids came via the web, roughly triple the portion from 2018.

NFTs, of course, remain a big part of winning over the next generation of collectors. Sotheby's might have missed out on the Beeple sale in March 2021, but it countered a month later, selling $16.8 million worth of work by the anonymous artist Pak that attracted some 3,000 buyers. Then came record-setting prices for two of the most popular cartoon NFTs: $11.8 million for a single CryptoPunk (a rare alien) in June 2021 and $3.4 million for a Bored Ape (a golden-fleeced primate) that October.

To read the complete article, see:
How Sotheby's Combined NFTs And A Netflix Attitude In A Wild Bid To Be Crypto Cool (https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/09/how-sothebys-combined-nfts-and-a-netflix-attitude-in-a-wild-bid-to-be-crypto-cool/)

Once in a while, you come across a detail that shows how much the world has changed. The most creative science fiction writer would have had a hard time coming up with it just a few years back.

Today's example comes from the website of the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

It's a trademark application for the phrase: RUSSIAN WARSHIP, GO F**K YOURSELF.

It's not an opportunistic intellectual property squatter or an entrepreneurial company or even the Ukrainian government applying.

Instead, it's literally the border guard himself: Roman Hrybov, 32, who was feared dead, but who was later found to have been captured by Russians after they seized the island.

The trademark application contemplates things like ...

To read the complete article, see:
Toys, games, and playthings (https://www.understandably.com/p/toys-games-and-playthings)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
UKRAINE AWARDS MEDAL TO SALTY-TONGUED SAILOR (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n14a27.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web