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

disparities between the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean in the methods employed for
cultivating, tilling and manipulating the land. The restricted availability of valuable metal
agricultural tools exposes how various cultures employed metal resources differently.
Therefore, it would be a mistake to identify distinctions in agricultural production and
efficiency based solely on the distribution of metal tools.
VI. Metallurgical tools (including non-metal types)
Implements associated with metalworking were comparatively rare (Fig. 3.4a, b,
Fig. 3.10a, b). There are 357 metallurgical tools, representing 6.7% of the dataset, yet
only 128 of these examples are metal. The other tools consist of stone and ceramic molds,
which are classified here as smithing implements. The paucity of metallurgical tools does
not match the comprehensive evidence for second millennium metalworking, as seen
with the distribution of raw materials (copper ingots), finished objects (tools, weapons,
vessels, etc.) and remnants of metalworking operations (slag, furnace fragments,
crucibles, tuyères). The prevalence of metalworking is well documented throughout the
MBA and LBA, except on the Greek mainland (see the brief metallurgy summaries in
Chapters 1 and 6). Therefore, metalworking is attested archaeologically more so through
traces of smelting, melting, and casting processes than from the quantities and
distributions of the metallurgical tools. Slag was discarded in heaps at or near production
sites, while tools were repaired and recycled, thus limiting their preservation in the
archaeological record. The scarcity of metallurgical utensils does not mean that they were
irrelevant to the industry, and the distribution of the tools alone is not a reliable gauge for
assessing the prevalence of metalworking. More metallurgical implements exist in the
LBA (203 examples) than in the preceding period (119 examples; Fig. 3.10a, b). The
87