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

such as Alaca Höyük, Kuşaklı-Sarissa, and Kayalıpınar. 445 Wooden or metal dowels were
inserted into the mortises to attach a wood or stone superstructure, which would have had
corresponding mortise holes. 446 Traces of tubular drill usage are documented on LBA
architectural sculpture from Mycenae (on the Lion Gate relief and the Treasury of Atreus
façade) and from Hittite sculpture (e.g. Hattusha’s Lion and Sphinx Gates, the lion heads
from Hattusha’s Temple 2 and 3, Eflatun Pınar, and the Derbent relief). 447 In addition to
actual drill holes, stone cores, displaced during the cutting operation, were recovered at
Tiryns, Boğazköy (including an impressive cache of 600 stone cores found in the
northern entrance of Yerkapı) and Kuşaklı. 448 Both Mycenaean and Anatolian drill holes
vary in diameter size, suggesting that useful tool kits held multiple drill bits. Sufficient
information exists for a plausible reconstruction of the tubular drill, which is currently on
display in the Çorum Museum. 449 In addition to drilling holes in masonry and sculpture,
hollow drills were essential for stone vessel production as well as working stone seals,
ivory/bone and wood. 450
Despite the high quantity of drill holes on Crete, the mainland and Anatolia, the
number of possible tubular drills is vanishingly small. In fact, this type of drill is
445
For Alaca Höyük: Koşay and Akok 1966, plate 82. For Kuşaklı-Sarissa: Müller-Karpe 1995, figure 15;
Müller-Karpe et al. 1999, figure 9. For Kayalıpınar: two drill holes (3.1 cm in diameter) occur on the top of
an orthostat-like block with a sculpted relief of a seated divinity. See: Müller-Karpe 2006, 218-221, figures
5-6. Kayalıpınar is located near the Kızılırmak River, northwest of Kuşaklı.
446
In most cases, the mortise holes were for wooden dowels and a wooden superstructure, but two bronze
dowels (with 3.9 and 4.1 cm diameter) are still preserved between different masonry courses of the King’s
Gate; see Seeher 2005, 29 figures 12-13.
447
For Mycenae: Casson 1933, 27-31; For Hattusha: Seeher 2005, 32-34, figures 21-24, Neve 1987 397
plate 17 (temple 3); For Eflatun Pınar: Bachmann and Özenir 2004, 96 and note 94, figure 14 (for a
picture of the mountain deities) and figure 15 (for a detail photograph of the drill holes); For Derbent:
Neve 1988, 263-264, figures 2-4.
448
For Tiryns: Rahmstorf 2008. For Boğazköy: Neve 2001, plate 10d; Seeher 2005, 30. For Kuşaklı:
drill cores are on display in the Sivas Archaeology Museum. Rectangular mortise holes also occur at Masat
Höyük.
449
For other reconstructions and experimental work regarding this tool, see: Schwandner 1991, 219 figure
5d; Seeher 2005, 20-26, figures 4-5, 8.
450
Evely 1993, 84; Bevan 2007, 47, 51.
183