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

Hoards are thought of, for the most part, as haphazard assemblages of scrap metal waiting
to be melted down. Any variety therein is not considered to be by structure or design, but
a result of the miscellaneous nature of any used materials that retained some degree of
metallurgical value. I believe that hoard content was created much more deliberately, by
conscious and informed selection of groups of objects such as tool sets. The tendency of
choosing and depositing tool kits was an important (though not the only) factor dictating
the formation of a hoard.
A singular, definitive explanation of the function of a hoard is difficult to
pinpoint, though scholars have sought to do so, as discussed later in this chapter. The
multi-purpose nature of Mediterranean hoards has not been adequately recognized in the
past. Most of these caches should be understood as metal assemblages that were being
held in storage and which could be added to or subtracted from freely. Thus it may be
more useful to consider these groupings as shifting accumulations of metal items
collected over time, while recognizing that hoards themselves could be formed by a
single deposition. In the creation of a hoard, numerous factors dictated what was
included, thereby accounting for the diverse range of objects in any given hoard. One set
of items that were regularly and intentionally included within metal caches were tool kits.
In this way, tool kits provided some structure to hoards since they were a consistent
element in the fluid process of depositing and extracting metal items.
In a discussion of European metal hoarding, Needham cites tool kits, among other
things, as an organizing agent: “Associated objects can also sometimes be united by their
context of use, for example, the tool-kit or adornment of a single person, or the trophies
won…certain combinations might throw light on the way that production was
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