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

these implements hardly changed. The contextual distribution of awls, however, shifted
from the MBA to the LBA (Fig. 3.25b). In the MBA, burials are the likely destination
and awls are found regularly at medium and minor sites. By the LBA, awls primarily
occur in settlements, specifically large sites. This superficial overview suggests that awls
were personal objects during the MBA as emphasized by their deposition in tombs. I
hypothesize that small craft activities originated at the individual level during the MBA,
before eventually becoming controlled by corporate authorities by the LBA. Another
possibility is that the nature of small crafting tools ceased being meaningful during the
LBA and the tools were no longer placed in burials. It is reasonable to surmise that
leather working would have employed awls, and, as with weaving, LBA Aegean
production seems controlled by the palaces.
The Ub series of Pylian tablets provides textual evidence for leather working from
lists of raw sources, final products and craftspersons. 277 Pylos Ub 1318 records five
variations of hides (including goat, pig and deer skins) that are handed over to three
different kinds of workers who collectively produce eight types of finished products. 278
Although this crucial tablet bestows a “complete record of leather-working,” the specific
Linear B term for the occupation of leather working is unclear. Three possibilities exist:
di-pte-ra-po-ro, ku-re-we and wi-ri-ne-we. 279
Leather goods attested in the Linear B texts
277 Voutsa 2001, 150.
278 Voutsa 2001, 151. The following Linear B words are associated with the various stages of
leatherworking. Raw materials: di-pte-ra (worked leather?), wi-ri-no (unworked leather? Ox-hide?), e-rape-ja
(deer-skin), we-e-wi-ja (pig-skin?) and a-za (goat-skin?); Leather workers: au-ke-ija-te-we, me-ti-jano,
mu-te-we; Finished products: o-pi-de-so-mo (bandages?), ka-tu-ro (packsaddles?), wo-ro-ma-ta, ru-dea,
a-re-se-si, pe-di-ra, e-ma-ta, e-pi-u-ru-te-we, a-ni-ja (reins), o-po-qo wi-ri-ni-jo/wi-ri-ne-o (blinkers).
Trantalidou (2001, 285) states that hides can be used in a variety of purposes, including: “farming
implements (harrow), pack saddles, thongs for addles and panniers, ropes, sandals, shoelaces, protective
coverings for the yokes of oxen and cows.”
279 Voutsa 2001, 150-151.
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