baker
Why This Ancient Civilization Fell Out of Love With Gold for 700 Years
Analysis of4,500 artifacts suggests an early society between the Black and Caspian Seas turned against bling
[ain't this where the Khazars came from? spoopy Smithsonian COMMS?]
December17, 2021
Four thousand years ago, the finest gold items on Earth belonged to the nomadic groups that roamed the mountainous lands between the Black and Caspian Seas. These communities herded animals for a living [normie sheeple?], but they also mastered gold working long before most societies. Theirelites flauntedthat bling, especially in theirtombs,which were loaded with golden goblets, jewelry and other treasures. Word of this gold-rich land spread and spawned tall tales from faraway lands, like the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece.
But, according to new research published in Scientific Reports, gold fell out of fashion in the Caucasus and remained unpopular for at least 700 years. Analyzing more than4,500 artifacts, discovered by archaeologists over the past130 years, a researcher showed that gold items became rare across a large swatch of the territory between 1500 and 800 B.C.E. The locals seem to have decided, then, that gold was gaudy.
Even something we tend to regard as a global commodity—that is gold, the allure of gold—is not universal in space and time,” says Cambridge professor Marcos Martinón-Torres, an expert on ancient metals who was not involved in the research.
The archaeologist behind the research, Nathaniel Erb-Satullo of Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, thinks the gold decline resulted fromelites losing status.Perhaps, average folks decried the one-percenters of their day, and ostentatious markers of wealth, like gold adornments, went out of style.Down with the rich and their riches.
Possibly, metalsmiths did craft gold during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, but archaeologists haven’t yet discovered the sites where it’s buried. However, Erb-Satullo was intrigued by an alternative explanation: Communities in the Caucasus might have lost their gold lust for nearly 1,000 years.
In 2019 he began scouring published reports from archaeological digs that occurred in present-day Georgia,Armenia[Barsoomian?] or Azerbaijan, from the late 1800s [6+6+6 → 666?], onwards. By late 2020 his database comprised 89 sites and 4,555 [45 - 5:5?] gold objects, including cups, figurines, beads and fragments of gold sheet, which likely covered wood objects that decomposed long ago.
Together, these clues suggest the upper class scaled back their most egregious displays of wealth. The social hierarchy may have leveled somewhat. Or, perhaps high-status individuals just quit flaunting their riches. Either way, thesocial turn against goldwas unique to Middle Kura residents.
When scholars only focus on successful innovations, they make it seem like technology invariably advances in a linear progression from simple to complex—from sticks and stones to iPhones. But 3,500 [35JFK → EO 1110 & silver?] years ago, in the Caucasus, communities decided to abandon the (then) cutting-edge industry of gold working.
entire article @ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-this-ancient-civilization-fell-out-of-love-with-gold-for-700-years-180979254/