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

are impressive and meaningful in their own right. Utilitarian double axes are well-made
and solid-cast, and are the only kind of double ax found outside of Crete (Plates 4.4-6).
The initial preference for double axes on Crete may have been linked to its affiliation
with cults, but the proliferation of the functional implement on the Mainland was due to
its high utilitarian value. Shaw notes that considering the “worn, sometimes battered
condition resulting from repeated use, they [double axes] must have been a versatile,
popular tool.” 334
The success of the double ax as an effective implement, rather than its
reverence as a ceremonial object, is the reason for its wide dispersal throughout the
Aegean. Yet studies on the double ax have not adequately acknowledged a disconnection
in the production and consumption tendencies between Minoan and Mycenaean types.
The depositional record for double axes differs from Crete to the mainland.
Double axes are abnormal as burial gifts, for less than ten percent come from mortuary
contexts. Of the 33 double axes attributed to burials in the dataset, 20 were placed in a
single grave at Mycenae (Tomb of the Tripods).
335
Evidently, the double ax was rarely
removed from circulation deliberately—a probable indication of its high functionality.
LH double axes are repeatedly recovered in metal hoards (65 of the 104 LH examples
were from a cache), but the occurrence of double axes in Minoan hoards (37 of 137) is
less frequent. Considering the number of double axes from Mainland hoards and the
impressive assembly from the Tomb of the Tripods, it is very rare for mainland double
axes to be found without any other tools.
The distribution of double axes on the mainland is more restricted than on Crete.
The implement has been recovered from 27 mainland sites, but the majority came from a
334 Shaw 2009, 39.
335 Onassoglou 1995; Onassoglou 1996.
141