"The Bronze Age saw the timber problem spread from formerly forested Magan to Mesopotamia through Anatolia, the Levant, Cyprus and Crete. Eratosthenes said that late Bronze Age Cyprus was heavily forested despite tree-felling for agriculture, copper and silver smelting and shipbuilding. But its copper industry collapsed around 300 BC through lack of timber. Slagheaps suggest a total copper production of 200,000 tons, a fuel equivalent of 200 million pine trees, 16-times the area of the island. The 30 known silver mines in Attica, the area around Athens, required timber for smelting. Four tons of ore made two kilograms of silver. Taking 3,500 tons of silver and 1.4 million tons of lead production for classical Athens, a million tons of charcoal and 2.5 million tons of forest were consumed. Plato wrote that Attica is ‘a mere relic of the original country…All the rich soil has melted away.’ Originally heavily forested, timber had to be imported to build the fleet that beat the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC."