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

economic approach to hoarding must be reevaluated to avoid mistakenly forcing socio-
economic interpretations onto the archaeological material.
Several hoards are dated to the late 13 th or early12 th century BC by a single tripod
stand fragment, meaning that the production date of bronze stands and tripods plays an
important role in categorizing some hoards. 604 Consequently, the tenuous chronology of
Aegean and eastern Mediterranean caches is particularly perceptible in a debate about
metallurgical material from Palaikastro, Crete that included a tripod leg mold. At this site,
a pit deposit contained more than one hundred pieces of metallurgical industrial waste
including tuyères, crucibles, and clay mold fragments. Hemingway dated the deposit to
the LM IIIB period (13 th century BC, but Catling dates the pit’s ceramics to LM IIIA2)
and argued that a few clay pieces of the investment fragments belonged to a Cypriot
tripod leg mold, 605 despite the fact that bronze stands and tripods are understood as a
product of the Cypriot late 13 th century BC. 606 For this reason, Catling doubted that the
ceramics and metallurgical debris were placed in the pit at the same time, claiming that
Hemmingway’s “conclusions about the significance of the contents of the deposit are so
radical.” 607
Hemingway’s assertion that a Minoan workshop manufactured Cypriot-type
stands/tripods prior to the late 13 th century creates a degree of chronological uncertainty
for any hoard that relies upon said tripod fragments. Regardless of how one interprets the
tripod mold fragments from Palaikastro, the debate over them highlights the
precariousness of using an individual object to date an entire hoard.
604
For chronological interpretations of hoards based on tripod fragments, see: Catling 1964, 297; Knapp,
Muhly and Muhly 1988, 248
605
Hemingway 1996, 215; Catling 1997, 53-55.
606
Catling 1997, 58.
607
Catling 1997, 52.
250