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

probably influenced from the east, at least two kinds are distinct to the Levant. The first is
what Philip terms “narrow-bladed” axes, which were produced in the coastal Levantine
region; this type of socketed ax was regularly found in burials from Palestine. 299 The
other major shaft-hole ax type from Syria-Palestine is probably a weapon—“fenestrated
axes” with two holes in the blade, also called duckbill axes. 300 Despite the militaristic
nature of the object, their ability to cut meant that they could have been used—however
inefficiently and sporadically—as a tool. Fenestrated or duckbill axes were therefore
included in this tool dataset, even though they are primarily understood as weapons. The
form of these blades may resemble a crescent shape, but they should not be confused with
the non-shafted “crescent axes” that typically occur in Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, and
Egypt during the third millennium. 301 Yet the fenestrated ax perhaps developed naturally
from the non-shafted crescentic axes. A series of MBA socketed axes have been found in
Egyptian graves—all from the eastern Delta region, in particular Tell el-Dab’a. 302 The
shafted axes, both fenestrated (duckbill) and narrow bladed types, are uncharacteristic of
the Egyptian repertoire of weapons and tools and must have been imported from the
Levant. 303
Shaft-hole fenestrated blades and molds are especially common to Byblos, but
the implement was also known and manufactured in Anatolia (according to molds from
Kültepe), and the ax is depicted with an “Asiatic” figure in an Egyptian tomb painting
299
Philip 1989, 40-41, 43-44.
300
Maxwell-Hyslop 1949, 119-121; Philip 1989, 49-59.
301
Philip 1989, 45-48; For Egyptian non-shafted, crescentic axes: Davies 1987, 39-41, entries 79-100,
plates 14-17.
302
Davies 1987, 54, entries 167-169, plate 30; Philip 1995, 71, Figure 1, 1-3.
303
When Petrie (1917, 11) published his monograph on Egyptian tools, he did not know of any prehistoric
socketed axes in Egypt, leading him to conclude: “The use of a socket was very slowly adopted by the
Egyptians; they never employed it for bronze or for hammers, and only a few socketed iron axes have been
found, which are probably Greek or Roman importations.” Now see, Philip 1995, 71, Figure 1, 1-3.
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