Esther Addley

British team says new study ‘radically transforms’ understanding of bronze age trade networks

In about 1300BC, the major civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean made a cultural and technological leap forward when they began using bronze much more widely for weapons, tools and jewellery. While a form of the metal had previously been used in smaller quantities by the Mycenaeans and Egyptians among others, bronze was now abundant – but how?

Most bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, but while the former was widely available in antiquity, tin is a rare element, with no large sources within thousands of kilometres. This left one big question, referred to by archaeologists as the “tin problem”. Where were the bronze age societies of the Mediterranean getting the tin for their bronze?

To mark the release of his new film, hundreds of people who sort of look like the actor gather outside Prince Charles cinema

On a sunny, bustling late afternoon outside a cinema in Soho, central London, more than 100 people have gathered, a number of whom sort of, if you squint, look a little bit like the actor Nicolas Cage.

There is a Raising Arizona Cage, moustachioed and with a Hawaiian shirt. There are several Con Air Cages in white vests, one of whom has a toy bunny in a small cardboard box. Several can genuinely claim an uncanny likeness to the actor; one or two others might uncharitably be said to be closer to Cage’s character in Face/Off, who surgically swaps his own distinctive features for the face of someone else – in that case, John Travolta – who looks nothing like him.