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

part of a metal hoard that was stashed under the threshold of the high priest’s house near
the Baal and Dagon temples. 322
The surfaces of several adzes were inscribed in Ugaritic,
thus recording a dedication to the city’s high priest.
Regional total MBA LBA General 2 nd millennium
Crete 1 1 - -
Mainland 0 - - -
Islands 0 - - -
Cyprus 0 - - -
Anatolia 5 1 4 -
Syria-Palestine 9 - 9 -
Shipwrecks 0 - - -
Total 15 2 13 0
Table 4.2: Shaft-hole adze distribution
C: Double axes (Plates 4.4-4.9)
While shafted axes with single blades are typical of tool repertoires from the
eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia, shaft-hole axes with two blade ends are distinctly
Aegean. The double ax is more effective than single-blade tools because “it does not have
to be sharpened as often and is perfectly balanced for swinging.” 323 The tool occurs as
early as the third millennium on Crete and the Greek mainland. Verification of the tool’s
early manufacture comes from a double ax mold in an EM IIB context at Vasiliki.
Physical examples of the tool appear in the early carpenter hoards, such as the EM II-MM
II Selakanos and Samba (Pediados) hoards, as well as the Thebes EH hoard. 324
The regional and chronological distribution of double axes is outlined in Table
4.3. By the MBA, the tool type is well documented on Crete, but its presence is sporadic
elsewhere. Indeed less than ten percent of the known double axes are dated to the MBA,
as the implement is predominately restricted to the LBA. The dramatic increase in double
322 Schaeffer 1956, 251-275.
323 Shaw 2009, 40.
324 Four or five double axes from the Selakanos hoard: see Branigan 1969, 2-4; Branigan 1974; Deshayes
1960, entries 736, 737, 2038, 2018, 2045. One double ax from the Samba (Pediados) hoard: see Branigan
1968; Branigan 1969. One double axes from the Thebes EBA hoard: see Renfrew 1967; Branigan 1969;
Branigan 1974, 134, 153; Maran 1989.
138