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

implement probably developed morphologically from the knife. 465 Egyptian
representations of saws in carpentry and shipbuilding are found throughout the Bronze
Age, but the tool is also thought to have cut stone masonry. 466 Timber and refined pieces
of wood could be cut or shaped easily with a saw, and the implement may be considered
foremost a carpentry object. Serrated saws, especially the larger Minoan types, were
likely used to “cut wooden beams for timber framework, ceiling and roof structures” as
well as large logs. 467 As saws vary in size and form, so might their function. Shaw
envisioned a set of small Minoan saws (between 5 and 14 cm long) “in the minor arts for
making artifacts of stone, gold and ivory.” 468 While these smaller saws are impractical in
masonry, there is no reason why they would be ineffective in cutting wood and bone. An
appropriately sized saw is also capable of cutting stone blocks, especially soft materials
like sandstone and poros limestone, which were repeatedly used on Crete and Cyprus.
According to traditional interpretations, thin toothless saws were “used for cutting hard
stone” with the aid of sand and emery abrasives as cutting agents. 469 Shaw cautions,
however, that the role of the Cretan saw in fashioning ashlar masonry and orthostate
facades was more limited than previously believed: “contrary to what has been assumed
in the past, there is no definite evidence to indicate that large, squared wall blocks were
cut by this method [sawing]; instead, they seem to have been chiseled smooth.” 470
Despite this important warning, traces of saw cuts are discernible on masonry from Crete,
Cyprus, the mainland and Anatolia. Even if the saw was not a regular masonry
465
Petrie 1917, 43, plates XLVIII, L, LI; Scheel 1989, 50-51, figure 55; Killen 2000, 355, figure 15.18;
466
For shipbuilding scenes with saws from the Fifth dynasty mastaba of Ti, see Rodgers 1992; Steffy 1994,
30, figures 3.7; for discussion on the Old Kingdom Egyptian stone cutting saw, see Moores 1991. For more
general stone cutting with Egyptian saws, see Petrie 1917, 44, plate LII.
467
Shaw 2009, 46.
468
Shaw 2009, 44.
469
Shaw 2009, 44.
470
Shaw 2009, 46.
187