Middle and Late Bronze Age Metal Tools from the Aegean, Eastern ...

The relative absence of Aegean digging implements is also curious since the
Mycenaeans were highly skilled in manipulating the landscape and moving large
amounts of earth. Innumerable tools were required for the construction of earthen levies
in the Kopaic basin drainage project, for the diversion of a river bed and the construction
of an earthen dam near Tiryns, for additional irrigation works in Arcadian Orchomenos,
and for local needs, such as the excavation and reopening of chamber tombs. 184 Digging
instruments, including shovels and plowshares, are attested in a few LBA contexts, and
presumably they were utilized in these massive projects. Loader calculated that
approximately 52,000 and 300,000 cubic meters of earth were removed to create the
canals at Tiryns and the Kopaic basin, respectively. 185 The soil from the canals formed
the earth embankments of the water systems, meaning that the earth was not transported
very far from where it was dug out. Although digging tools were necessary to break up
the soil, the earth could easily be removed in baskets, as suggested by depictions of
laborers in Egyptian paintings. 186 Smaller projects, such as hollowing out wells and
reshaping terraces, also required implements that facilitated the transformation and
movement of earth. 187
Thus the scarcity of metal digging tools in the Aegean is
unexpected, given the numerous earthen projects of the Mycenaeans.
Although the Aegean did not produce excessive quantities of metal agricultural
tools, textual sources and storage areas for harvested products suggest that farming
thrived in the region. Clearly, wood and stone implements were utilized more often than
metal ones in Aegean agrarian practices. Metal tools for farming were generally
184
Kopaic basin: Iakovidis 2001; Knauss 1996; Tiryns dam: Balcer 1974; Zangger 1994; Knauss 2004.
Arcadian Orchomenos: Knauss 1996.
185
Loader 1998, 101-109, 181 appendix 4.
186
For a short discussion of Aegean baskets, see Evely 1999.
187
For a discussion on the possibility of terracing the Aegean Bronze Age, see: Rackham and Moody 1992.
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