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THE JOURNAL

OF THE

British Archaeological Association.

SEPTEMBER, 1906.

THE ISLE OF ICTIS AND THE EARLY TIN TRADE.

BY EMANUEL GREEN, Esq., F.S.A.

(Read November 15th, 1905.)

[graphic]

ROM certain allusions or statements in old writers, it has been assumed and accepted that in prehistoric times there was an export trade in British tin, shipped from an island called Ictis, lying somewhere off the coast. This island, the story says, became a peninsula at low water, and could then be reached by dry land, when the tin was brought to it and sold, shipped to Gaul, and carried across to Marseilles on horseback.

The great puzzle here has been the whereabouts of this island a puzzle which has caused much doubt and wild guess-work without any satisfactory result. By some it should be St. Michael's Mount, off Penzance; by others, it was the Black Rock at Falmouth; by others, it was St. Nicholas's Island, at the mouth of the Tamar, near Plymouth; by others, it was the Isle of Portland; and by others, it was the Isle of Thanet. Yet againand most absurd of all-it has been supposed and asserted

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to be the Isle of Wight, solely because its name is somewhat like Vectis, the latin name for that island. make this argument possible requires a capacious imagination indeed. The sea-a deep sea-from the mainland of Hampshire, must be made to dry up-in imagination; the necessary accommodation must be found on the island side-by imagination; and then the tin must be dragged to it overland-a further piece of imagination ; and all this without a tittle of evidence to suggest the thought, and with the fine port and depôt of Clausentum (Bittern, our Southampton), actually in use close at hand. If history can be satisfied with such work, it must be a waste of time to seek for facts.

Archæology and geography have been so ruthlessly violated on this subject that, so far, the attempts to determine the question have resulted in failure, and this chiefly from the continued, persistent endeavour of writers to accept or adopt old theories and statements. To substitute for the chaotic confusion and traditional fallacy which have hitherto prevailed, a genuine, precise, and critical examination of the story must be fairly acceptable, and also hopeful for the truth. The first step towards accuracy will be gained when all legends or guesses are cast aside.

The old writers, as authorities, quoted singly and without context, have been used too often, not for what they could teach, but rather to be forced into agreement with preconceived or predetermined intention. They must necessarily be quoted again, but now in chronological close order, only to show the origin of, and to explain, the existing arguments.

Herodotus, the Greek author, about B.C. 450, did not know of Britain certainly as an island. It was thought then to be either joined to Spain and Gaul, or only separated from these by a narrow channel.1 This, the first author to be quoted, is also the first to mention tin. "Concerning the western extremity of Europe," he writes, "I am unable to speak with certainty, nor am I acquainted with the Cassiterides, from whence our tin comes. tin, for him and generally, did not come from Britain.

1 Bk. II, 115,

Thus

Passing on, in order of time, about B.C. 265, one Timæus gave a rather uncertain account of Britain; but he gives us the foundation of what follows on this tin question. To his mention of Britain he adds, "an island called Mictis, lying inwards, in which bright lead (candidum plumbum) is found, is within six days' sail, and the Britons sail over to it in coracles of osier covered with hides."

Two little starts in our confusion have here been made: one by the introduction of bright lead, translated tin, and the other by the mention of the island of Mictis, which produced it. For it must be at once noticed that it was Mictis which produced the tin, not Britain; and further, the island was six days' sail from Britain, not attached to or part of it; and there is no intimation that the Britons in their coracles, if we can suppose they sailed six days at sea in such craft, brought anything with them or did anything more than sail over.

Pytheas, another writer of a little later date (about B.C. 260), implies that he came over to Kent, and that he travelled in Britain; but he gives no hint about tin, or that there was any communication with any tin district or with the Continent. He only tells us that Kent is some days' sail from Gaul, and that the extreme points of the two countries lie opposite to each other: the eastern extremity of Britain opposite the eastern extremity of Gaul, and the western extremity opposite the

western.

No notice is met with now for two centuries, when (about B.C. 50) one Posidonius is said to have crossed to Britain, and to have given the name Altiventeum, otherwise Bolerium, to some part of it. The name suggests experience of a south-wester. There certainly was a current idea that the winds were so strong that neither man nor horse could stand against them. With this new name comes another start in our confusion.

Posidonius does not mention British tin; but, writing of Iberia (Spain), he tells us that beyond the Lusitanians

1 Pliny, Nat. Hist., Bk. Iv, c. 30.

2 Strabo, Bk., Iv, c. iv, 2.

(Portugal), in the Cassiterides, tin was found and obtained by digging.

The ancients of these days, as seen here and from Herodotus, believed that all tin came from this district of Iberia or from these islands, the Cassiterides, supposed little islands and unvisited, but imagined to be situated off the coast of Spain. They got the name from the Greek word kaoσíтepos, tin. Pliny speaks of but one island called Cassiteros, because tin was first brought from it. Strabo makes the number ten, and near each other. Of metals, he says, they had tin and lead. The traffic, he adds, is carried on from Gades. Those "who journey northward towards the Artabri (Galicia) have Lusitania on the right; and opposite the Artabri are the islands denominated the Cassiterides, situated in the high seas, but under nearly the same latitude as Britain. There is one thing peculiar to these islands: at a full sea they look like islands, but in low water they look like peninsulas."

Here, again, it must be noticed, it was the Cassiterides, within sight of and presumably connected with the Spanish coast, but in no way connected with Britain, which produced the tin, and the trade, it is distinctly stated, was from Gades. Britain is mentioned only because its western end was believed to be immediately opposite, in nearly the same latitude.

One Publius Cassius is said to have visited the works about B.C. 50, and found the metals were dug out at but little depth. He told what he had learnt to those who wished to traffic, though the passage, he says, was longer than from Britain. Yet we have been told that these islands could be seen from the Artabri coast, and at low water were peninsulas. As Publius neither went to nor saw Britain, he could know nothing of it, either as to distance or anything else. Like other writers, he was only repeating and relying on the then belief that Britain was somewhere opposite in the ocean. Also, he gives neither starting-point nor time occupied in the transit. His little story is imperfect, and his informa

1 Vol. ii, p. 225.

2 Strabo, Bk. II, c. v,

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