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

weights—whorls—were typically ceramic. 531
Each craft set was thus highly dependent
on the tasks that were required.
Assortments of woodworking tools are depicted on funerary reliefs from the
Roman period, clearly displaying the possessions of a craftsperson. The prevailing theme
of these depictions and similar examples is the mixture of tool forms. A relief from the
cemetery of Isola Sacra in Ostia (AD second century) showed a double-sided ax, an ax-
pick (or ax-adze), various chisel types, an adze-plane, a cleaver, pruning blades and
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knives. Similar representations appear on other funerary reliefs, further highlighting
the range of tools within a Roman kit. 533 Actual tool sets from this time are preserved in
the archaeological record and contain a similar level of variance. For example a
craftsperson’s set of accessories was found in Roman Augst (Germany), where
“discovery of a cache of tools…unearthed a collection of twenty-two woodworking tools,
including hammers, adzes, a rare rasp, plane blades and chisels.” 534
The diversity of these
implements is a classic trait of a tool kit, in this case almost certainly belonging to a
carpenter. The distinctiveness of these Roman implements resembles the assemblages of
second millennium BC utensils, which likewise may be sets related to craft work.
Two kinds of variation point to the existence of a tool kit. The first is a tool
assemblage within a functional category (e.g. carpentry/masonry tools) that comprises
different implements like axes, adzes, saws, chisels, and drills. A grouping with several
of these implements provides evidence of a deliberate craft set; such combinations of
tools are consistently included in metal hoards throughout the MBA and LBA. The other
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For an example from pre-Columbian South America, see the collection of spinning tools in the
photograph from Crockett 1977, 11.
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Ulrich 2007, 17, figure 3.5.
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Ulrich 2007, 32, figure 3.20; 55, figure 3.45.
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Ulrich 2007, 14.
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