Oxhide ingot
Mediterranean Late Bronze Age metal slabs / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Oxhide ingots are heavy (20–30 kg) metal slabs, usually of copper but sometimes of tin, produced and widely distributed during the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age (LBA). Their shape resembles the hide of an ox with a protruding handle in each of the ingot’s four corners. Early thought was that each ingot was equivalent to the value of one ox.[1]: 138 However, the similarity in shape is simply a coincidence. The ingots' producers probably designed these protrusions to make the ingots easily transportable overland on the backs of pack animals.[1]: 140 Complete or partial oxhide ingots have been discovered in Sardinia, Crete, Peloponnese, Cyprus, Cannatello in Sicily, Boğazköy in Turkey (ancient Hattusa, the Hittite capital), Qantir in Egypt (ancient Pi-Ramesses), and Sozopol in Bulgaria.[2][3] Archaeologists have recovered many oxhide ingots from two shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey (one off Uluburun and one in Cape Gelidonya).