Theories about the bronze bowl of Berzocana and the East Mediterranean in the 12th – 10th centuries B.C.

Abstract

In April 1961, a bronze bowl containing three golden-torques was found in Berzocana (Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain). Years later, when analyzing it versus a handful of comparable bowls found in Canaan and Cyprus, scholars reached a consensus that this bowl was imported from the East Mediterranean. This paper analyzes thirty-seven comparable bronze bowls, found in sixteen distinctive East Mediterranean sites, ruled by different peoples. Which of these groups manufactured the bowl of Berzocana? Why did they export it to the Iberian Peninsula? From which port in the East Mediterranean could it have departed? How did the bowl of Berzocana appear in Extremadura? When were these objects buried and by whom? How did the bowl and the three torques end up where they were found? Certain hypotheses were formulated to recreate possible historic scenarios that answer these and other questions. It was concluded that the Tjeker (one of the Sea Peoples groups of Aegean origin that settled in Canaan and Cyprus at the end of the 13^th century B.C. or the beginning of the 12^th century B.C.) were responsible for manufacturing and transporting the bowl of Berzocana to Extremadura.