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

Palestine and Anatolia. There are no definitive MBA examples of the tool on the Greek
mainland or islands.
Shaft-hole axes were not extensively used in the Aegean, probably because of the
overriding predilection for double axes. 308 Eight LH shafted axes are known from the
mainland, and all but one are from Epirus. These Epirote types probably coincide with
metallurgical practices from Albania rather than the Aegean. 309 Artistic renditions of
shaft-hole axes, however, do occur in the Aegean, despite their shortage in the LM and
LH periods. A 16 th century gold bracelet recovered in Shaft Grave IV (Grave Circle A) at
Mycenae provides an image of the tool. 310 The primary design, on the top of the bracelet,
is of four shaft-hole axes fanning out radially from a central point, where the bottoms of
the ax handles meet. It is thought that thin iron cut-outs overlaid each ax to enhance the
motif, though the cut-outs were not preserved. This bracelet, with its representation of
shaft-hole axes, is the only evidence for the tool within the shaft graves, as actual
examples are not found with the burials. The design could not have been adapted from
early Mycenaean tools, as the implement was absent from mainland contexts during that
time. The motif was perhaps taken from the Near East (Anatolia or the Levant), Egypt or
Crete. The 11 shafted axes from MBA Crete (all from Palaikastro), however, are rather
small and unlikely to be the source of inspiration. The diminutive size of the Cretan
specimens led Evely to question their functionality as practical implements and to
propose a votive or ritual function. 311
Depictions of shaft-hole axes appear in other
308
Deshayes 1960, 228; Evely 1993, 58.
309
Deshayes 1960 (entries 1798, 1803 and 1807) provides some examples of shafted axes from LBA
Albania. The Emirate examples seem to reflect a NW Greek/Albanian metallurgical practice rather than a
Mycenaean one.
310
Karo 1930-1933, 76-77, plate XLII, NM 263.
311
Evely 1993, 55, 58.
134