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

type of diversity that may mark a tool kit is multiple versions of one kind of object. Each
implement form has an array of subtypes that convey related but distinctive tasks. For
example, there are numerous subdivisions of adzes, including: single adzes, double adzes,
ax-adzes, hammer-adzes and pick-adzes. The variation of adze types is particularly
apparent in Cypriot contexts. Subtypes in a tool’s morphology are formed on a regular
basis by changing an implement’s size to fulfill specialized tasks. 535
Chisels also provide
a good example, since they can be identified by the measurement of their cutting edges,
which range from extremely narrow to very wide.
Tool kits are omnipresent in third millennium BC Aegean carpenter hoards.
Branigan noticed similarities in tool selections among the Petralona, Kythnos, Eutresis,
and Thebes hoards: “The four hoards reveal, therefore, a similar, but not identical,
composition to one another, and in particular all the hoards contained at least one
example of three types of tool, viz. narrow-bladed chisel, broad-bladed flat axe, and a
shaft-hole axe of one form or another.” 537
These tools were those of a carpenter,
indicating that EBA hoards contained wood-working tool kits.
In this study, integrated sets of implements are each thought to be associated with
a specific industry (e.g. carpentry/masonry, metallurgy, agriculture). In some instances,
multiple kits are evident in the same context. The Enkomi Foundry hoard from Cyprus is
such an example, for it included a full smith kit and a complete carpentry/masonry kit,
resulting in a mix of tools that are not usually found together. Attempts to delineate
535 For ethnographic examples of tool variation from Crete, see the different double axes (or other
combination tools), chisels, hammers, picks, wedges, crowbars displayed in the Museum of Cretan
Ethnography under Architecture section, specifically the “Quarrying tools” and “House Building.”
Photographs of these tools with their diverse range are found on the museum’s website:
http://www.cretanethnologymuseum.gr/imke/html/en/4201.html
536 Branigan 1969.
537 Branigan 1969, 10; for a more recent discussion on the Petralona hoard, see Tzachili 2008a, 15-19.
536
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